


Dancing on the Ceiling

by HolisticPanda



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-04-08 03:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14095869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolisticPanda/pseuds/HolisticPanda
Summary: Her senior year is supposed to be about finishing high school with as little drama as possible. The last thing she needs is to become involved with a boy from a rival school. Furiosa/Max, high school AU.





	1. Chapter 1

For the life of her she can’t understand why she keeps allowing herself to be dragged to these stupid house parties. The music’s always too loud, the beer is always shitty, and you’re lucky if you make it out the door without someone spilling said shitty beer all over you. And though she doesn’t like going to them, she kind of gets why everyone else does.

For the seniors it’s either a last hurrah or celebration depending on if they’re going to college or have to get a job, and for the younger kids it serves as an easy way to see and be seen to further cement their place in the Citadel High School hierarchy. She wonders how many people are like her; dragged there almost against her will by her friends and wishing they were absolutely anywhere else. The same asshole friends who’d split up and abandoned her within five minutes of arriving.

As she leans boredly against the wall and sips at her absolutely disgusting beer—she’d _kill_ herself if she ever learned to enjoy the taste of Natty Ice—a few familiar faces stick out to her in the crowd. There’s Rictus Erectus, a huge but stupid as fuck junior who plays for the Citadel Warlords football team as a linebacker. He’s currently in the process of slamming back a beer with a guy that she only knows as the People Eater, a football player so large that he looks like he actually _does_ eat people.

She turns away when Rictus begins to retch and spots a guy that everyone calls the Doof. He’s in a few of her classes, and despite being pretty much blind, he’s amazing at the guitar. He always seems to have a horde of adoring fans following him around—which unfortunately also inflates his ego to the point where he’s insufferable most of the time.

The only person she sees and actually _likes_ is Ace, a senior like her. He’s standing in the kitchen talking to someone just outside of her line of sight, and for a reason she can’t understand given the already dim lighting in the house, he’s wearing a pair of dark sunglasses.

She’s just about to walk over to see if he’s as bored as she is when he steps further into the room and reveals who he’s talking to; ‘the Immortan’ Joe, or Crazy Joe to the people who know of his reputation. He’d graduated almost a full three years ago, but his reputation as a serial sexual abuser and all around asshole still echoes in the halls of Citadel High, easily overshadowing his accomplishments as a championship winning quarterback.

He still thinks himself the king of Citadel high even though he’s already twenty one and a college dropout, a fact that’d be amusing if he wasn’t _also_ the leader of a gang of skinheads who call themselves the Warboys. she wonders if that’s why he’s talking to Ace—because he needs some new blood.

She’s frozen in her spot until Joe’s eyes meets hers, and then she’s abruptly turning to leave the house, a shiver going up her spine at the twisted smile he gives her. She’d had an altercation with him back when he was a senior and she was a freshman, back when she’d had hair down to her middle back rather than the buzzcut she currently sports, and the last thing she wants to do is relive _any_ of what had happened. She refuses to let him get to her again.

She finds the back door of the McMansion and throws it open, taking a deep breath of the cool, fresh air. She hadn’t realized how hot and stuffy the house had been, and now that she’s outside, the thought of going back in there where _he_ is sounds like a completely unappealing option. She looks behind her at all the chaos inside and the decision makes itself. There’s no way she’s dealing with all of that when she could be home and safe in her bed by midnight.

She quickly turns to leave, deciding to walk home rather than endure another minute of painfully loud EDM, only to run full force into a warm, solid mass that she somehow hadn’t noticed before. The person spills what feels like an entire can of cold beer all over the front of her jacket and jeans, and then she feels herself explode.

“Watch it!” she shouts, wiping at her leather jacket with her fingers. Even though it’s just beer and most of it is already rolling off of her, she’s fuming. “It never fucking fails, every _goddamn_ time—”

“M’sorry, sorry,” the boy slurs, clumsily trying to help wipe away some of the beer with the hem of his white t-shirt but only managing to spill what’s left of his beer on his own old leather jacket and grey jeans.

She’s about to shout at him again, about to rip into him for not being able to hold his alcohol and for getting in her way, but then she notices a wetness in eyes and on his cheeks. He’d been crying, and her yelling only seemed to be making it worse.

She swallows her anger and sighs, rubbing at her forehead with her hand. It _was_ an accident, and he _did_ look pretty sorry. Screaming at him wouldn’t make her any less wet, so instead she forces herself to calm down. “Hey, you alright? You want me to help you find your friends?”

The boy shakes his head vehemently, making himself dizzy in the process. “Jus’ need to sit down.” He tries to ease himself down but practically falls onto his butt, back leaning against the wall of the house, and his head drops between his legs in an attempt to keep everything from spinning.

She nearly groans as she watches him struggle to stay upright. Even if he’s a complete stranger she knows what it’s like to be completely alone when you need help. No one was there for her, but she could be here for him. Her eyes fall to his watch and she bites back another sigh. So much for going home before midnight.

Rather than try to force him to stand she sits down, scooching back until she’s directly next to him. They sit in silence for a few minutes until her impatience gets the better of her. If he won’t start, she will.

“So...do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” He doesn’t raise his head at all, keep it tucked between his knees.

She shrugs and leans her head back against the wall. “Well, I guess we’ll just sit here then. Quietly.”

This time he does look up at her, his eyes crossing briefly as he tries to focus on her face. “Y’don’t hafta stay.  M’fine.”

“I know.”

His lips quirk upward in a smile, and he shakes his head ruefully. After another couple of seconds, he extends his hand towards her. “I’m Max.”

She clasps it in a firm grip, ignoring the tingling that starts in her hand and goes up her arm as she does so. “Furiosa.”

He squints at her through already narrowed eyes, not bothering to hide his skepticism. “That your real name?”

“Believe it or not, yeah.” She might have been insulted if she wasn’t so used to it, but instead it just makes her smile. “You go to Citadel?”

Max shakes his head again. “Sun City. Senior?”

Furiosa raises an eyebrow at that, curious as to what a Sun City High kid was doing all the way  out on the preppy side of town. While Citadel was a successful, fully-funded public school, Sun City was considered the rougher, poorer, ‘other side of the tracks’ school and it wasn’t all that often that they interacted with each other outside of sports games. “Yeah. You?”

“Junior.” He then takes a long swig of what’s left of his beer and holds it out to her.

Furiosa grabs the can and sets it down on her other side, well out of his reach. “No thanks, and I think you’ve had enough too. Any particular reason you’re trying to obliterate your liver?”

He looks at her, betrayed, and frowns. “Don’t wanna think.”

She doesn’t get a chance to ask anything else as a strange whistling in the distance catches her attention. It takes her a few seconds to recognize it as the sound of police sirens approaching, and then she’s instantly on her feet. She’s just about to hoof it—she can't get arrested again or her aunts will _kill_ her—but then she stops and realizes with annoyance that she can't just _leave_ him here. Underage drinking is strictly enforced in their annoyingly conservative town, and in his current state there's a one hundred percent chance he’ll be sleeping off his inebriation in a jail cell. “Max. We have to go.”

“Wha? Why?”

“Cops. Come _on_.”

She pulls him up to his feet and throws his arm over her shoulders to steady him. Because he’s a lot heavier than he looks, they make it out of the back gate and to the sidewalk behind the house at a less than rapid pace. Just in time, too, as judging by the screams erupting behind them, everyone else has just noticed that the night is over. “I’m not gonna risk trying to find my ride in all that chaos. Don’t suppose you drove here?”

He looks around for a second and then points at a car behind her. “Falcon,” he mumbles lowly.

She follows his finger and nearly sighs with relief when she spots his car. It’s parked on the other side of the road and not even a block away. “Nice car. Hope you weren’t planning on driving home tonight.”

He gives her a look so full of anger that she’s taken aback. It quickly fades to sadness a second later, and then he’s holding out his keys. She wants to ask what the hell his problem is, but another scream from the house sends her rushing across the street with him in tow.

He doesn’t complain when she shoves him none too gently into the passenger seat, though he does make a noise of protest when she starts up the car and peels away from the curb a little too quickly. She’d only had half a can of pisswater so she’s basically stone cold sober, but he wouldn’t know that.

She has to drive a full three blocks away before she feels safe enough to relax, the tension in her shoulders lessening with each anxious breath.

“Where do you live? I can drop you off and Uber home.” When he doesn’t answer for a few silent seconds she glances over only to find him fast asleep. That _motherfucker_.

“Max? Hey!”

She reaches over to smack him in the face a couple of times but he doesn’t so much as stir, his mouth hanging wide open as though he doesn’t have a care in the world. Furiosa blows out a frustrated puff of air. Her aunts were right; no good deed goes unpunished whenever a man is involved.

Left without any better ideas she keeps driving until she's slowing to a stop around the back of her house. Parking it up front would undoubtedly get the attention of her aunts given how loud his car was, and even though she’s incredibly annoyed with him, she doesn’t want him to get a gut full of buckshot. They were probably asleep since they have to get up early to run the bakery, but they also seem to have the uncanny ability to know when she’s doing something wrong.

Hopping out of the car she walks around to throw open Max’s. He’s slumped far down in his seat, still completely knocked out, and Furiosa groans. She stays in pretty good shape, but she’d already learned that Max was a lot more solid than he looked, almost like he plays some sort of sport.

There’s no way she’ll be able to get him up the stairs without any help, so she smacks his cheek harder than she had before in order to wake him.

“What,” he grumbles, finally lucid enough to look up at her.

“I need you to walk. Can you do that?”

Max groans quietly but nods, and with her help he stumbles out of the car and into her waiting arms. Her nose wrinkles as the smell of stale beer assaults her senses and she has to hold her breath to avoid choking on it.

It’s hard work, but she somehow manages to get him across the backyard and to the backdoor of the two story house without causing too much noise. She slips her key into the lock and pushes open the door, wincing at the creaking of the old hinges. Luckily the stairs are close by so she doesn't have to walk too far in the dark.

“Okay, last stretch,” she whispers at the bottom of the staircase, sweat already beading on her brow. She’s panting now, the trip from his car to the house tiring her out more than she’d expected. They take it one shaky step at a time, the clunking of their boots on the wood sounding like thunder to her ears.

Just when she thinks she's going to make it all the way up without arousing any suspicion, she hears the sound of quiet footsteps coming from the kitchen.

“Furiosa? That you?” a voice calls from downstairs.

She strongly considers pretending that she hadn’t heard anything, but quickly realizes that staying quiet would seem much more suspicious. “Yeah, Maddi, it’s me. I’m just gonna go to my room and pass out.”

“Alright, have a good night.”

The sound of retreating footsteps are music to her ears. She releases the terrified breath that she didn’t realize she’d been holding and slowly continues up the last two steps. Her room is thankfully right at the top so she doesn't have much longer to go before she can rest.

Once they're both safely in her bedroom and the door is kicked shut she unceremoniously drops him back first onto her bed, stretching her arms to relieve the tightness that had developed from carrying his stocky body up an entire flight of stairs. She stands over him with her hand on her hip, unsure of what the hell she’s supposed to do with him next. He’s already passed out again and shows no signs of waking anytime soon, so all she can do is try to get some rest herself.

“I can already tell you’re going to be trouble,” Furiosa mumbles, removing her black leather jacket and boots. She glances back at him to make sure that he’s _really_ asleep before she changes into a pair of sweatpants and a large t-shirt. She thinks about doing the same for him, but ultimately decides that having to sleep in his jacket and boots is going to be his punishment for making her drag him around all night. The last thing she removes is the prosthetic on her left arm, placing it gently on her bedside table.

She perches uneasily on the edge of her bed and stares down at him, watching his chest rise and fall as he sleeps off his inebriation. As reluctant as she is to admit it, he’s actually kind of handsome when he’s not drunk and stumbling all over himself. Even his messy hair and ridiculous cowlick are weirdly cute. “Move over,” she whispers, rolling him over until he’s only taking up half of her bed. She doesn’t really want to share her space with a drunk guy she’d met barely half an hour ago, but she also isn't willing to sleep on the cold, hardwood floor and she isn’t quite mean enough to make him do that either.

Sliding her legs into the bed she pulls her old quilt over the both of them, suddenly exhausted by the night’s adventure and carrying a two hundred pound boy around. She yawns and reaches over to shut off the bedside lamp, enveloping the room in darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing Furiosa notices when she wakes is that she’s warm. Too warm, to the point where she’s actually beginning to sweat. The second thing she notices is an unusual weight across her stomach, and she blearily opens her eyes to see, of all things, a thick arm holding her close.

On reflex she clenches her fist and is about to start swinging, but right as she’s about to lay into whoever’s sharing her bed her memories of what had happened the night before luckily return. Right, party. Max. Drunk. Cops. He was here because of _her_. Glancing down, she can’t help but notice that at some point he’d slipped his hand underneath her shirt to wrap around her bare midriff; whether or not it was intentional, she couldn’t say.

She sighs and pulls his arm out of her shirt in order to sit up, rubbing her hand over her face. Though she’d slept pretty well overall she strongly considers going right back to sleep, stranger in her bed or not. At least until she glances at the clock to see that it’s nearly ten o’clock; any chance of sneaking him out before her aunts wake up is long gone. “Fuck.”

She hops out of bed to pace around her room, trying to figure out how the hell she’s going to get him out of the house without any of her aunts seeing her. If she’s lucky they’re all out of the house and busy at the bakery, and if she’s _un_ lucky they’ll all be sitting at the kitchen table sipping tea the moment she decides to go downstairs.  
  
Her phone buzzes from its spot on her nightstand, temporarily distracting her from her mini freak out, and she picks it up to see that she’s missed a lot of messages from her friends since leaving the party. As she scrolls through the chatlog, she lets loose a groan.

**Group Chat with Splendid, Puffy Cheedo, French Toast, Mo Than Capable, and Dig Dag**

**12:27AM**

**Splendid:** Furi? Where are you?

**French Toast:** lol did she get busted

**Mo Than Capable:** oh no did u Furi?!

**Splendid:** Do you need a ride? Or did you find one?

**Puffy Cheedo:** where is everyone?!?! I was following furi and some guy but they disappeared and now im stranded!

**French Toast:** :OOO

**Mo Than Capable:** :OOOOO

**Splendid:** OMFGGGG Okay Cheedo we’re in the car at 5th and Evergreen but more importantly FURI DID YOU GET SOME?!

**Puffy Cheedo:** omw!! dont leave without me :(

**Mo Than Capable:** bruh did Furi really get some or are you joking

**French Toast:** S C A N D A L O U S

**French Toast:** but for real were gonna talk about this

**Splendid:** Answer us already!

**Mo Than Capable:** she probably cant bet her hands are busy LOL

**Puffy Cheedo:** GROSSSS also okay I see you guys almost there

**Dig Dag:** Hi

**French Toast:** late like usual lol

**Puffy Cheedo:** typical

**Splendid:** Okay Furi, we’re gonna text you in the morning but if you don’t reply we’re gonna go looking for you

**9:57AM  
** **Splendid:** Furi???? Answer or we’re seriously looking for you

**French Toast:** Oh shit did she get murdered

**Puffy Cheedo:** Not funny :(

**Dig Dag:** Good morning!

**French Toast:** omfg shut up dag Furi got murdered

**Mo Than Capable:** SHUT UP TOAST

**French Toast:** lol what just sayin

Running a frustrated hand through her short cropped hair, she types out a quick message to placate them. The last thing she wants is for them to show up at her house and find Max sleeping in her bed—they’d never let her live it down.

**Group Chat with Splendid, Puffy Cheedo, French Toast, Mo Than Capable, and Dig Dag**

**10:04 AM  
** **Fists of Furi:** I’m ok, stop freaking out

She loves her friends, she does, but they can be incredibly immature sometimes. Even Angharad who’s a senior just like she is tends to act like like a kid whenever she’s around the younger girls. She almost regrets replying when her phone instantly begins to blow up with more messages.

**Group Chat with Splendid, Puffy Cheedo, French Toast, Mo Than Capable, and Dig Dag**

**10:05 AM  
** **Mo Than Capable:** SHE LIVES

**French Toast:** did u get dick tho?

**Puffy Cheedo:** TOAST

**French Toast:** what lol

**Splendid:** What took you so long to answer? Were you really having sex?

**Fists of Furi:** No I just got a ride and went to sleep

**French Toast:** got a ride huh lol

**Mo Than Capable:** ;)

**Fists of Furi:** ok, I’m turning my phone off

She knows that they’re just giving her shit, but she really can’t deal with them while she has bigger problems to figure out—like how the fuck she’s going to get Max out of her house without anyone noticing. Just as she sets her phone down—a little too noisily—a whimper from her bed catches her attention. She turns to see Max’s eyes slowly opening to look at her, and right after, he grimaces.

“Ow,” he moans, raising a hand to his throbbing head.

Furiosa smiles ruefully. She can almost imagine what kind of pain he’s in since she too had once turned to alcohol as a means to forget. “Finally, I thought you’d never wake up.”

He looks confused for a second, his eyebrows furrowing, but then a glint of recognition sparks in his eyes. “Furiosa.”

“Oh, so you _do_ remember my name?” she teases, sitting on the edge of the bed next to him.

He looks around the room with wonder, noting the picturing and posters covering nearly every surface. The theme of the room seems to be controlled chaos, with certain items like clothing strewn about haphazardly but other items like books are stacked neatly on her bookshelf. “Where…?”

“My room. I didn’t want to leave you in your car to get picked for drunk driving and I didn’t know what else to do with you, so…I drove us back here.” She shrugs at the end of her explanation, feeling a little self-conscious about he decision. After saying it out loud, she has to wonder if maybe there was a better solution.

He nods stiffly, a small bit of color appearing on his cheeks. “Thanks. Uh, I’ll just—” he starts to get up but instantly falls back to the bed, clutching painfully at his head. He rolls over to burrow his forehead in her cool bedsheets, and if she weren’t so worried about getting found out she might have laughed.

Sighing, Furiosa stands up to walk to her door. “Take it easy for a second and I’ll see if I can find you some aspirin.” She slowly creeps down the stairs, avoiding the squeaky steps and then peeking around the corner to see if there’s anyone in the kitchen only to find two of her four aunts cooking breakfast. Not the worst case scenario, but still dangerous.

Maddi smiles when she sees Furiosa’s head poking out from behind the wall and motions for her to enter, her shoulder length brown hair neatly twisted into a bun. It's streaked with grey, a few strands slipping out to fall into her hazel eyes. “ _There_ you are. We thought you were going to sleep the whole day away.”

“Just need some aspirin, do we have any?” she replies, trying her best to project an air of casualness. Keep, the oldest and most laid back of the aunts, glances over at her with an amused smile from where she’s scrambling eggs. Her silver hair is tied back away from her face, revealing a suspicious twinkle in her bright blue eyes.

The woman steps away from the stove long enough to hand Furiosa a few aspirin and a glass of orange juice that had already been ready and waiting. “To wash it down with,” she murmurs lowly.

Furiosa takes the offered items as cooly as possibly, doing her best not to show how exactly anxious she is. “Thanks, Keep.” She turns and gets halfway back up the stairs when she hears Maddi loudly clear her throat.

“Oh, and when that boy up there can move, bring him on down for breakfast.”

She winces and tries not to trip over her feet, the sound of her aunts laughing echoing in her ears. She should’ve known. She could never get anything past her aunties.

With her cover blown she sees no need to sneak around anymore, so she stomps up the rest of the way and throws open the door to her room. “Here,” she snaps, holding out the aspirin and juice for him to take. She has the decency to wait for him to sit up on his own before she—a bit rudely—shoves the items into his hands.

He throws back the pills along with a mouthful of juice and swallows them as if he’s used to it, and after looking at his current state, realizes that this probably isn’t the first he’s had such a morning.

As soon as he finishes the glass of juice Furiosa puts her hand on her hip and glares down at him. “So, listen, the way I see it, you owe me.”

Max raises an eyebrow, confused. “I _owe_ you?”

“For saving your ass from the _cops_. We’re going downstairs to talk to my aunties, and _you’re_ not going to say a word.”

He looks relieved, and she has to wonder what exactly he thought she was going to ask of him. “Oh. That it?”

Furiosa scoffs and shakes her head. “You have _no_ idea what you’re about to walk into. Come on.”

She waits for him to stumble to his feet and leads him downstairs to where the firing squad is waiting. At some point Mel, the last of her aunts who weren’t currently at the bakery, had come into the room, curious about this strange boy their niece had snuck into their home. Her tan, muscled arms are crossed across her chest as her bright green eyes watch the two of them descend, face schooled into a suspicious frown.

They’re all sitting around the kitchen table with a basket full of scones fresh from the Many Mothers’ Bakery in the center giving off all kinds of wonderful smells, but Furiosa's anxiety is making her everything _except_ hungry.

“Take a seat, young man,” Maddi says, the small, thin woman placing her hand on the back of one of the wooden kitchen chairs. He does as she asks, nervously plopping down in the seat and trying to avoid looking directly at anyone besides Furiosa who was currently pouring herself a cup of coffee. Maddi sits in the chair directly across from him and threads her fingers in front of her face. “So, what are you intentions with our Furiosa?”

Choking around her drink, Furiosa reels on her aunt. “Seriously? Am I in an 80's sitcom or something?”

“Well?” Maddi presses, ignoring Furiosa’s outburst.

The girl cuts in and answers for him, unable to believe what’s happening right in front of her. “Nothing happened. Max got wasted, I felt bad for him, and I brought him back here to sleep it off. That’s _it_.”

This time the woman _does_ look at her niece, silencing her with a stern frown. “I asked _him_.”

No one speaks for a few seconds as Max looks at Furiosa, her aunts, and then back again, unsure of what to do. Realizing that the sooner he explains himself the sooner he can get out of there, Furiosa gives him a helpless shrug and a nod, granting him permission to talk. So much for not saying anything.

“I dunno. I was drunk,” he mumbles, scratching awkwardly at the stubble on his chin.

There’s a long moment of shocked silence as her aunts all share a look of disbelief, and then to Furiosa’s absolute amazement, the older women _laugh_. “Alright. You can stay for breakfast, Max, but then you get the fuck out,” Maddi chuckles, standing to walk back over to the stove.

Furiosa’s jaw drops, flabbergasted at this turn of events. She’d heard stories of what her aunts had done to unscrupulous men in their biker gang days so the fact that they were letting Max off without even a _threat_ was astounding. “Wait—that’s it? You’re not going to pull out the shotgun and threaten to shoot his dick off if he shows his face around here again?“

The woman shrugs, piling some food onto a plate. “Is he lying?” When Furiosa shakes her head, Maddi waves her hand. “Then I don’t see a reason to castrate him just yet.” She places the plate of food in front of Max. “I know you don’t want to, but eat up. It’ll help with the hangover.”

Max nods and scoops a mouthful of eggs into his mouth while Furiosa looks on with raised eyebrows. Normally she can’t eat for hours after waking up with a dry mouth and pounding head, but he finishes his plate along with two or three of the scones in no time flat.

Before she knows it he’s on his feet. “Thank you,” he says, looking around at her aunts.

There’s such sincerity shining in his eyes that even Mel can’t maintain her severe facade, and a small smile appears on the woman’s lips.

“Get on home now, boy. Your family’s probably wondering where you are.”

A melancholy look crosses his face, but he nods and turns towards the front door. Furiosa moves to show him out, not caring that she’s still wearing her night clothes.

“Your car’s parked on the street behind our house, go out the back door and you can get to it faster,” shes says, leading him back through the kitchen.

He relaxes a lot more once they’re outside, his shoulders dropping more and more the further he gets from the house. He’d seemed remarkably okay around her family, but it’s not until they’re alone that she sees how tense he’d truly been. He pauses at the edge of her yard for a moment before turning back to look at her with a small frown. “I…what can I do?”

“What do you mean?”

“To repay you.”

She knows he doesn't mean anything by it, but his question makes her feel lousy somehow. Like she was the type of person to demand payment for doing a good thing. “I didn’t help you because I wanted something. Just...take it easier with the booze, yeah?”

He looks unsure but ducks his head in a nod anyway. “I'll try.” With a final wave he exits through the back gate and gets into his car, starting it up and pulling away at a speed that was _definitely_ faster than she had the night before.

She waits until she can’t hear the roar of his engine anymore before she turns to go back inside to face her aunts, wondering if she’ll ever see him again.


	3. Chapter 3

For a week after the party her friends are relentless. Not a single day goes by that they don’t try to guess who’d she’d spent the night with or giggle amongst themselves as they imagine what exactly she had gotten up to. Everything they envision is false, of course, but it doesn’t slow them down one bit. The only one of her friends who isn’t giving her a hard time is the Dag, and she’s pretty sure that’s because the girl doesn’t even know what planet she's on. 

It’s only frustrating because normally she’d have forgotten all about the quiet drunk from Sun City High by now. At most he’d have become the highlight of what was going to be an otherwise boring night, but with everyone—including her aunts—constantly bringing it up, she finds herself thinking more and more about him. Had he made it home safe? Did he take her advice? Why was he getting so outrageously drunk in the first place?

She’s running late like usual and just manages to get to the locker she shares with Angharad as the morning announcements begin. Her friends are already there and talking loudly amongst themselves, completely ignoring the principal’s droning voice over the intercom—at least until the principal says the magic words they've been waiting to hear all week.

“Early bird prom tickets will be going on sale next week for fifty dollars. Get them now to save on memories you'll cherish forever. Today's lunch will be…”

She doesn't get to hear what they're serving as her friends instantly begin to plan, once again ignoring everything else the principal has to say. Talk of dresses, dates, limos, and how to sneak in alcohol inundate her to the point where she begins to zone out, her mind annoyingly wandering back to Max; It was really getting to be a problem.  
  
A tug on the sleeve of her jacket snaps her back to attention, and she turns to look into a pair of concerned brown eyes. 

“Aren't you going?” Cheedo asks, being the first of her friends to notice that she’s no longer paying attention. Which is rare, since she’s usually too glued to her phone to notice _anything_.

Furiosa shrugs. “Not this year. Kinda over it.”

Toast, being the instigator that she is, nudges her playfully. “But don't you already have someone to go with?” 

The girls all stare at Furiosa, each sporting a similarly amused smirk. She can see from the looks on their faces what they’re thinking and frowns. Just when she’d thought they were finally forgetting. “Don’t,” she warns, leveling each of them with a glare. 

The dark-skinned girl feigns a look of ignorance, putting on an innocent smile. “What? I just meant who _wouldn't_ want to go with Furiosa? _I_ want to go with Furiosa.”

Cheedo latches onto Furiosa’s arm, beaming widely. “Me too!”

“That would be most excellent,” Dag chimes in.

Furiosa shakes Cheedo off and scoffs. “I'm not spending fifty dollars to watch my classmates try to have sex with each other on the dance floor.” 

The second bell rings, thankfully ending the conversation for the moment, and they all split up and head their respective classes. She has gym first; not her favorite class by any stretch, but it’s the only one she’s managing an A in.

Her teacher generally doesn’t care what her students do as long as they’re exercising, so after changing into her gym clothes she walks right out to the track and begins to warm up, planning to spend the period jogging. She’d been on the cross country team once, back when she still gave a shit about high school, so running is the easiest and doesn't take too much out of her.

She immediately falls into a relatively quick pace, feet hitting the expensive rubber of the track every half of a second or so, and makes it all the way around five times before she notices the heavy breathing of someone behind her. She glances over her shoulder to see Ace doing his absolute best to keep up, sweat running in rivulets down his forehead.

“Do you _ever_ stop running, Jobassa?” he pants, seeing that he finally has her attention. 

She shrugs and slows her pace so that they’re jogging side by side, waiting for him to say what’s on his mind. He isn't usually one for idle conversation.

It takes him a minute to catch his breath, and when he does, he glances over at her. “Just so you know, some people saw you leaving the party with that Sun City kid at the party last week.”

Furiosa fights the urge to groan. Now even _Ace_ is bugging her about it? The kids at Citadel really need to get a life. “So?”

 “Word got around to Joe about it, and he’s not happy.” 

She feels her heart rate spike at the mention of Joe but manages to keep any expression from appearing on her face. “What is it with you and him, anyway? You thinking about joining his gang of entitled white boys?”

The boy shrugs a shoulder. “Nah, but he looked out for me when I was a freshman. Helped me get on the football team, y’know?” He can clearly see that she doesn’t care and sighs. “Look, me and you go way back to elementary, so I was just letting you know. I’d stay away from that kid if I were you.”

She slows to a stop for the first time since class began and turns to fully look at him. “I appreciate it, but I honestly don’t give a shit what Joe thinks nor how he feels.” 

Ace is silent for a minute, breath coming in hard pants. “Well, maybe you should.”

It sounds vaguely like a threat, but she’s known him for over a decade. It isn’t his style to worry her for no reason and even less to threaten her. “Thanks for the heads up.” She takes off again, her pace much faster than before, and she's pleased to see that Ace almost right away gives up trying to run with her. Sure, he's one of the better players on the football team, but she used to be the star of the cross country team. He’d done pretty well to keep up with her for as long as he had. 

The longer she thinks about what Ace had told her the angrier she gets. She can understand school rivalry, but she hates how the snobbish kids at Citadel look down on Sun City High as though being lucky enough to be born to affluent parents somehow makes them better. Even her friends are guilty of making jokes, though never anything as bad as what she hears in the hallways. At least they don’t think they’re too good to even _speak_ with them.

The gym teacher blows the whistle to signal the end of class, surprising her. She’d been running for nearly a full hour at a pretty quick pace yet she didn't feel all that tired.  
  
She meets Ace's eyes on the way to the locker rooms and he gives her an imploring look that she just rolls her eyes at. Even if she _did_ care about the possible repercussions of hanging out with Max, they don't exactly run in the same circles. The chances of her seeing Max again are slim to none anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

There are dozens of ways to get on her bad side, but assigning a one thousand word history paper with a one week deadline is hands down the easiest. Especially since she hasn’t touched her textbook since the first week of classes, preferring to copy off of Angharad when she can to get by. Unfortunately, that doesn’t exactly work with thousand word essays.

She’s sitting on her bed and working on typing out the bullshit report when her auntie Keep calls her from downstairs.

“Furi! Can you go the store? We need some things for dinner.”

She strongly considers putting her headphones on and pretending that she hadn’t heard because she was really on a roll, but then she remembers that they’re having lasagna and feels her mouth begin to water. “Okay!” she calls back, pushing herself to her feet and looking around for something clean to wear.

The store is only a few blocks away and it’s not too cold out, so rather than wear her usual jeans and leather jacket she decides to throw on a pair of shorts and sneakers and hoof it to the Whole Foods down the street—one of the many advantages of living in an affluent neighborhood. She heads downstairs to grab the list and money from Keep and walks out the door with a small wave.

She’s barely made it four blocks when she begins to sweat and instantly regrets not taking her bike. If she wasn’t only one block away from the store she’d turn around, but as it is it makes no sense to walk for  _ another _ ten minutes just to go get it.

The store is thankfully cool when she enters, and she takes a moment to let the air run over her scalp before looking over the list again to see what she should try to find first. “Milk, onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, and paprika…” she reads under her breath. She figures that it makes the most sense to get the milk last so that she doesn’t have to carry it all over the store, so she makes a beeline for the side of the store that houses the produce.

The list doesn’t say how many of each vegetable she should get, so she shrugs and figures a bag of each will be good enough. She nestles the bags in the crook of the arm that holds her prosthetic and heads over to get the paprika. What she doesn’t count on, however, is there being a two for one sale on Oreos, so of course she has to take advantage of such a good deal. And then there’s a sale on carrot cake and Cheez-its are 50% off and suddenly her arms are too full to carry the mix of healthy and junk food.

Just as she’s considering making the walk of shame back to the front of the store to get a cart, she spots a familiar cowlick in the next aisle over. Her first reaction is to hide—she hadn’t planned on seeing anyone she knew so she she’d thrown on the cleanest thing she could find—but then she realizes how ridiculous she’s being and strides purposefully over to where he’s perusing a shelf of potato chips. She'd wanted to talk to him again anyway, if only because she knows it'll piss off Joe.

“Max?”

His hackles immediately raise and he snaps his head over to look at her. He looks out of place amongst the healthy, upscale atmosphere of Whole Foods with his worn jeans and old leather jacket, but then so does she with her old Megadeth t-shirt and jean shorts. 

“What are you doing here?” she asks, keeping her voice calm to keep from spooking him.

His shoulders relax as he seems to recognize her. “Shopping.”

Furiosa glances in his cart, almost surprised not to see any alcohol, and then she remembers that he’s still underage and would definitely get carded looking the way he did. “Can I share your cart? I kind of misjudged how much I was gonna buy.”

He looks like he’s about to refuse, but then his eyes lower to her overflowing arms and he sighs, waving a hand to his mostly empty shopping cart.

She smiles and promptly drops her item into the cart, shaking her arms out to relieve some of the strain from carrying around her groceries. “Thanks. I only have one more thing to grab—I’ll wait until you’ve got everything to checkout.”

“M’almost done.” He grabs one of the bags of chips he’d been looking at and throws it into the cart with the few other meager items he’d picked.

“Cinnamon sugar pita chips. Expensive tastes,” she jokes.

Max smirks and shrugs, motioning for her to grab the cart so that she can lead.

As they walk together down the aisles, searching for the dairy section, she’s suddenly struck by how oddly domestic the entire thing is what with her pushing the buggy and him ambling along behind her like the miserable husband. It’s kind of nice, if not completely cliche, and she's a little sad when they eventually get to the dairy aisle and she grabs a gallon of milk. “Done. You good?” 

“Need to get one more thing.” He takes over the cart and steers them all the way back over to the produce section, and then over to where the flowers are.

She tries not to show her surprise, but she can’t stop an eyebrow from raising as he picks up a small bouquet of yellow sunflowers. “For your girlfriend?” she asks as he places them gently in the top part of the cart.

He nods, and she bites her lip. She shouldn’t be all that surprised—he  _ is _ a sort of handsome guy—but she’d be lying if she said she isn’t a little disappointed by this new revelation. “Oh, that’s nice of you.”

A strange look appears on his face, and rather than reply he pushes the cart to the front of the store where the cashiers are. He allows her to go first even though she has more items, and after checking out and paying, she turns to wave at him. “Thanks for letting me share your cart.” She gets about ten feet away with her bags before she hears him calling out to her.

“Hey, you walk here?”

She glances at the door and then back at him with a shrug. “It’s not far.”

“I’ll give you a ride. It’ll be safer.”

His tone doesn’t leave much room for argument, and she really doesn’t feel like walking anyway, so she readily agrees. “Really? Thanks.” She waits for him to finish paying, and then they're walking out of the sliding glass door together to get to the parking lot.

It’d been too dark to get a good look the last time she’d driven it, but his car really  _ is _ nice. The shiny black paint gleams in the late afternoon light, and after putting their bags into the backseat, they slide into the black leather bucket seats up front. “You remember where I live?” she asks, rolling her window down to lean her arm out.

He grunts and backs out of the space faster than what she’d consider safe, though before she can say anything he’s already peeling out of the parking lot and is on the road headed towards her house.

Now that she’s not driving carefully to avoid rousing the suspicion of any potential overzealous cops, she can really appreciate the power roaring beneath her seat. She usually prefers to drive motorcycles because they’re faster and more agile, but a car like his could definitely change her mind. 

In no time flat they’re pulling into her driveway, much to her disappointment. She steps out to grab her bags from the backseat and then leans down into the open window to look at him. “Thanks for the lift.” She looks back at her house and then at him consideringly. Taking a deep breath, she just goes for it. “Wanna stay for dinner?”

Max’s eyes widen, surprised, and then he’s shaking head like she'd asked if he wanted a punch in the face. “No, I’m uh, I’m fine.” At that moment his stomach decides to growl loudly, causing his ears to turn a deep shade of red.

It takes every ounce of willpower she has not to laugh, biting her lip to force it down. “You sure? My aunt Keep loves feeding people, you won’t be a bother. And we’re having lasagna.” His stomach complains again, louder than before, and this time she can’t stop a snort from slipping out. 

Max sighs and hangs his head a bit, now completely embarrassed. He turns the car off and opens the door. “Okay.”

A smile spreads across her face, and she leads him up the walkway to her front door. The door is unlocked—which is incredibly unsafe, even in this neighborhood—so she heads straight for the kitchen with her bags.

Keep turns to look at her when she enters, obviously taken aback. “That was fast, I thought you’d walked. How did you—” she stops mid-sentence when she notices Max shuffle in sheepishly behind her niece.

“Max gave me a ride home. Is it alright if he stays for dinner?”

Against the pleading look Furiosa’s giving her, the woman can only sigh quietly in exasperation. None of them can ever really deny her, especially when she rarely asks for anything. She turns back to the stove with a wave of her hand to continue stirring the pot. “Of course he can. Dinner should be ready in about an hour, you two go do whatever it is teenagers do nowadays.”

Furiosa runs over to give her aunt a kiss on the cheek and then motions for Max to follow her up the stairs. She’s only three steps up when she notices that he hasn’t moved, still standing awkwardly in the doorway. “Come on up, it’s fine.”

Still unsure, Max stiffly nods at Keep on his way past and shuffles up the stairs behind Furiosa. 

They get to her room and she kicks her shoes off into a corner to sit down on her bed. She’s not exactly sure what to do with him now—it’s the first time she’s had a guy in her space in a long,  _ long _ time—but he grabs her guitar and sits down on the floor to lean against her bedframe, right next to where her long legs are crossed. 

“You play?” she questions, noticing the easy way his fingers find the frets.

He nods his head, strumming a few chords to get used to the sound of her guitar. “A little.” He tunes it up a bit and then proceeds to play a melody she’s heard dozens of times when hanging out with her friends. He’s good,  _ Really _ good, and though she’d never really liked the song, she has to admit that it sounds a whole lot better when played on acoustic guitar. 

“A  _ little _ ,” she repeats, scoffing playfully when he finishes. “I didn’t take you for a Sam Smith fan.”

He shakes his head and starts to play a different song; one she doesn’t know. “Jessie liked him.”

Furiosa feels her smile fall a little. Jessie must be his girlfriend. “Not anymore?”

Rather than answer he shrugs his shoulders and puts the guitar aside, already bored with it. He pushes himself up to his feet and walks around her room, looking at the posters and pictures on her walls. He stops in front of a gaudy handmade picture frame on her desk. “This you?” he asks, holding it up. Two little girls, both with bright eyes and long hair, are smiling widely at the camera. The taller one has wild dark hair and tan skin, and the shorter one is unmistakably Furiosa—he’d recognize her intense blue eyes anywhere.

“Yeah, that’s me and my older sister Valkyrie at summer camp.” He raises an eyebrow and she smirks. “Yes, that’s her real name. Val for short. She’s on the road now, down in Texas last time we talked.”

“You had long hair.”

Furiosa rolls her eyes. “What gave it away?” She’s waiting for him to notice that she also still has a full left arm in the picture, but he’s already set it down and moved on. She watches him pick up another frame, this one much more recent. In it there are six girls, including herself, all with their arms around each others’ shoulders. “Those are my friends. You should meet them sometime.”

The speed at which he puts down the frame and moves on is almost comical. “Maybe.”

He holds up a picture of two women in motorcycle leathers next, both of them holding the hands of a much younger Furiosa. The family looks happy, and Furiosa especially. She doesn’t have time to explain the photo as Keep calls from downstairs.

“Come on down, time to eat!”

“Finally, I’m starving. Let’s go.” She ushers him down the stairs to the kitchen where all of her aunts—Maddi, Keep, Mel, and Lulu—are in the kitchen, bustling around and setting the table.

“Max, this is my aunt Lulu.”

Hearing her name, the woman turns. She looks like she’s somewhere in her forties, and her long, dirty blonde hair is tied up in a bun. The most noticeable thing about her though is how tall she is, easily three or four inches taller than both Max and Furiosa. She doesn’t look especially happy to see him but she doesn’t seem upset, either. “Welcome.”

Max nods in reply, standing stiffly until Furiosa pushes him towards a chair on the side of the table. She takes the seat next to him and watches hungrily as the food is placed in front of them. It's a simple meal of lasagna, green beans, and fresh rolls, but it's more than enough to send pangs of hunger through her stomach.

“Looks good, right?” she asks, noticing the way Max is also staring ravenously at the meal.

He nods as her aunts all take seats around the table. They lower their heads for a few quiet seconds to say a quick grace and then they’re all moving at once, passing the dishes around with practiced ease until each of their plates are full. Max is the first to empty his plate, and right after Keep gives him a second large helping with a smile.

Maddi, being the overprotective busybody that she is, immediately addresses their guest, schooling her face into as casual of an expression as she can manage. “So, Max, you’re the first boy Furiosa’s brought over in...how long’s it been, Keep? Five years?”

“Nine,” Keep replies.

“Nine years! And it’s already your second time here in as many weeks. Something we should know?” She’s not even bothering to hide her interest now, staring imploringly at the two teens.

While Max struggles to form words, face beginning to turn red with distress, Furiosa has learned over the years that it was better to be as blunt and open as possible with her aunts. “It’s not like that, Maddi. He has a girlfriend.”

Undeterred the woman looks over at him. “Is that true, Max? Do you have a girlfriend?” He doesn’t answer, staring down at his plate with a clenched jaw. his hand is frozen and gripping his fork tighter and tighter to the point where it’s beginning to bend under the pressure. “Max?”

Mel sighs around a mouthful of food, annoyed. “Stop interrogating the boy and let him eat.”

“What? It’s a legitimate question. If this is going to be a regular thing, I’d like to know who’s sitting at our table.”

“ _ Maddi _ ,” Keep warns. She rarely speaks frivolously, so when she does, everyone tends to listen.

Maddi huffs and rolls her eyes. “Honestly. I don't see what the big deal is, but  _ fine _ .”

They thankfully move on to other topics that  _ don't _ involve his love life, talking about things like new menu ideas for the bakery and what the larger Vuvalini gang is up to. Every now and then Maddi will ask Max a probing question, but a sharp look from Keep is enough to stop her from getting too invasive. It’s almost amusing how the smallest and oldest woman in the room holds the most power.

With the attention off of them for the moment Furiosa feels safe to place her hand on his arm. It takes a few seconds, but he eventually relaxes under her touch enough to continue eating. She’s not sure why he’d reacted so strangely to the question and isn’t sure if it’s even her place to ask. They're not friends; barely even acquaintances, really, and her curiosity isn’t enough to ask and make panic again. 

His earlier anxiety seemingly forgotten he continues to eat, and much to Keep’s delight he even asks for a third helping. Everyone else has already finished eating and get up to start clearing the table. Lulu and Maddi take care of putting away the leftovers while Mel starts in on washing the dishes. 

“I can help,” Max mumbles around his last bite of food. He grabs the dish towel off of the counter to begin drying the dishes that Mel washes. He hands them off to Furiosa as he finishes them, who then puts them where they need to go.

Keep comes up to Furiosa as she’s putting away a couple of plates, a sly smirk on her face. “Not afraid to do chores. I like him,” she murmurs low enough for only Furiosa to hear and delighting in the redness that creeps up her neck as a result.

If she’s honest, Furiosa is a little blown away by the lack of grief from her aunts. She’d assumed that they would be a lot more upset about the presence of a male in their home and was prepared for a chewing out from at least Lulu and Mel, but they move around and talked to him as though he belongs there. 

When they finish up he folds the dish towel to place it on the counter next to the sink. “I should get going.” He turns to look at each of the women, a small smile on his face. “Thank you. It’s been awhile since I’ve had such a good meal.”

Keep snorts but smirks. “Flatterer.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Furiosa offers, leading him back to the front door.

It’s dark when they step outside, their time in her house passing faster than either of them had noticed. She stays a step behind him as he walks out to where his car is parked on the curb, feet bare on the quickly cooling grass. As much as she wants to ask him to stay for just a little bit longer she can tell that the dinner had left him exhausted.

She waits for him to get into his car and then leans down to look at him through his rolled down passenger side window. “Sorry if my aunts got too nosey. They mean well.”

Max shakes his head. “I don’t usually get to eat with so many people. It was nice.”

There’s something incredibly sad about his words and in his expression, and before she talks herself out of it she holds out her hand. “Give me your phone.”

Surprised, he cocks his head. “Why?”

Rather than answer she just raises an eyebrow, and under her beseeching gaze he only sighs and fishes his phone out of his pocket to hand to her. She types her name and number in, a little surprised by the number of entries he already has. She didn’t take him for an all that popular guy. “In case you ever want to come over for dinner again,” she explains, handing it back to him.  She’s well aware of how overeager she must seem but she genuinely just wants to see him again—whether he has a girlfriend or not.

He takes the phone back and nods, smiling faintly. It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking, but he doesn’t seem  _ opposed _ to the idea. He waits for her to step backwards before he peels away from the curb and disappears around the corner, the thundering of his engine still echoing in her ears.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've ever wondered what Max and Furiosa look like as teenagers check out this amazing link that [Confucamus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/confucamus/pseuds/confucamus) put together: <https://imgur.com/a/zFt7wuv>

Whenever she has free time, Furiosa rides with Toast to help the younger girl get in her driving hours. As a sophomore Toast is only able to have her learner’s permit, and to get her real license she needs fifty hours of practice; ten of which needs to be at night. Angharad helps out too, though because she actually _cares_ about going to college, she has much less free time available between studying and extra curriculars.

Toast’s parents are too busy with work and her new little brother to take her driving, so they’d readily agreed to sign their names to Toast’s driving sheet whenever her friends taught her. As long as she practices with someone who knows what they're doing they couldn’t care less that her instructors are under 21.

They usually just drive around in the neighborhoods surrounding the school, taking advantage of the fact that it’s a familiar area and there aren’t a whole lot of other cars to worry about, however this week Furiosa has decided it’s time for Toast to start driving on the highway. After a bumpy start trying to merge into traffic, she’s now cruising easily and even singing along to some top 40 radio song.

Listening to her friend rap along to some song about bloody shoes is thankfully enough to distract her from thinking about Max. Despite giving him her number over a week ago she still hasn't heard from him, a fact that annoys her more and more each day. She fully recognizes how unfair it is of her to expect anything of him, especially when he has a girlfriend, but would sending her a quick message really be such a big deal?

She shakes her head and forces herself to concentrate on Toast’s driving. If he doesn't want to talk to her, then whatever; no use stressing about it.

They ride for a good twenty minutes, almost reaching the next town over, when Furiosa decides that they’ve gone far enough. She’s about to tell Toast to turn around and head back to town when she spots a flash of yellow from the corner of her eye, and before she knows it she already has the door half open. “Pull over!”

“What? _What_?!” Toast shouts, panicking. She quickly puts on her blinker and pulls onto the side of the road, her hands shaking slightly as she shifts the car into park.

Ignoring her, Furiosa jumps out to jog back to the telephone pole, stunned by the shrine of flowers and pom poms surrounding it. Taped to the pole is a large sign with the words ‘Think before you drink’ painted on it, and in the center of everything is a photo of a beautiful, dark-haired girl in a Sun City High cheerleader’s uniform smiling widely at the camera.

And though there all kinds of different flowers surrounding the picture, the ones that stand out the most are the sunflowers. There are three different bouquets of them, each still sporting the wrapping from Whole Foods and each in various states of decay.

It could have just been a coincidence—lots of people probably buy sunflowers from Whole Foods, not just Max—but it’s the thing that makes the most sense. His crying, his heavy drinking, his reluctance to let her walk home on the side of the road, his anger when she implied that he might drive drunk, why he’s so tense whenever anyone so much as mentioned his girlfriend…she doesn’t know how she’d missed it when the signs were right in front of her face. It was so fucking obvious.

She hears Toast walk up behind her, feet crunching on the dry grass. “Oh, I heard about this girl. She was killed in a hit and run a few months back and they never caught the asshole who did it.”

“I’m such an idiot,” Furiosa groans, kneeling down to get a closer look. She sees a small placard with the name ‘Jessie’ on it and all doubt is instantly removed from her mind. This is definitely Max’s Jessie.

Toast looks between the shrine and Furiosa’s face, confused. “Did you know her?”

“No, but she dated an...acquaintance of mine.”

“Fuck,” Toast murmurs.

“Yeah.” Once again turning to look at the photo, she thinks that it's easy to see why Max had loved her. She was beautiful, a cheerleader, and if the amount of gifts and flowers are any indication, extremely well liked.

Eventually she reaches her hand up and clasps it over her heart, lowering her head in a silent prayer. She didn't know the girl and doesn't really believe in an afterlife, but wherever Jessie’s resting she hopes she's at peace; if not for the girl’s own sake, then for Max's.

“I’m good. Let’s go,” she sighs, pushing herself to her feet.

They slowly get back into the car, a noticeably heavy atmosphere surrounding them. The girl—Jessie—had been so young, and it’s bit sobering to think that any one of them can meet a similar fate at any time. Even Toast seems to be driving a bit more carefully than she had been.

They drive for a full five minutes in relative silence, the only sound in the car coming from the staticky speakers of the beat up old car. Eventually Toast can’t keep quiet any longer, and she leans forward to turn the radio off. “So, who’s this acquaintance?”

Furiosa groans. She’d been expecting the questions to come eventually, but not nearly this soon. “You don’t know him.”

“So it's actually a dude?” Toast asks as she wracks her brain, running through the list of every guy she thinks Furiosa might know, and more importantly every guy she might know from Sun City High. It’s difficult because there isn’t a whole lot of crossover between the two schools and the older girl doesn’t really fuck with a whole lot of guys to begin with, but then it hits her. “Wait, is it the dude from the party?”

Too shocked that she’d guessed right on the first try to convincingly lie, Furiosa can only sigh. “Don’t tell the others.”

“I won’t.” Toast drums her hands on the steering wheel a few times, trying to put her next thoughts into words. “I know we give you shit sometimes, but you really can talk to us about anything. We won’t make fun of you.”

“ _Really_ now,” she shoots back sarcastically. She distinctly remembers all of them—save Dag because the girl is never really on the same planet—mercilessly teasing her about leaving the party with a strange boy every chance they got.

“I mean, if it’s serious. You’ve been there for each one of us when we were being hounded by crazy Joe, and it makes me sad that you think you have to hide him from us.”

Feeling as though the conversation is going in a direction she doesn't like, she quickly moves to correct her friend. “I’m not _hiding_ him, there’s just nothing to tell.”

Toast is quiet for a long minute, eyes staring at the road in front of them. “Well, is he cute?”

Furiosa rolls her eyes and pauses, trying to think of an answer that will satisfy the girl without giving away too much. As she recalls his deep blue eyes, shaggy brown hair, and abnormally plump lips, she does her best to keep her cheeks from burning. “He’s...attractive. Sort of.”

Her friend audibly gasps. “Oh my God, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say those words before.”

“ _Toast_.”

“ _Okay_ , okay. Well, what else?” Toast asks, trying not to smile.

While she’d initially planned to shut down the conversation or attempt to change the subject, she finds that she can’t stop herself from wanting to talk about all the things she’d been thinking since she’d met him. “He’s just _different_. Most of the guys I know are all stupid, arrogant assholes. And maybe it’s cause we go to a school full of entitled pricks, but it’s nice to talk to someone who isn't putting on a show for everyone, you know?” As soon as the words leave her mouth she shuts it, a little embarrassed that she’d said so much.

Her friend looks over with raised eyebrows. “You got all that from spending _one_ night with him?”

Furiosa shrugs and stares out of the window at the passing scenery, hoping that her silence is enough to end the conversation. It probably isn’t a good idea just yet to tell her that he’d come over for dinner only a week earlier.

Undeterred, Toast continues. “This is the most I’ve ever heard you talk about a guy. We’re totally failing the Bechdel test right now, and your aunties would be so disappointed. But, ugh, a _Sun City_ kid?”

She sees the annoyed expression that crosses Furiosa’s face and quickly waves a hand. “I'm _joking_! You have to admit, though, it's kind of like Romeo and Juliet. Or Maria and Tony. Two lovers, forbidden from one another.” She places the back of her hand on her forehead dramatically, frowning when the older girl doesn’t laugh. “Come on, that was funny!”

Against her will Furiosa finds herself smiling. “Yeah, it was. Now pay attention to the road.”

The short haired girl can only make it another minute before another question bubbles out of her mouth. “So, you gonna see him again or what?” she asks, pressing the issue.

“I gave him my number, so maybe.”

Toast scoffs. “Seriously? That’s _it_?”

Frustrated, Furiosa throws a hand up. “What was I _supposed_ to do? We’re not even friends, and he probably doesn't want me as one anyway.” There’s a noticeably bitter edge to her voice, and it surprises her. Apparently she’s more disgruntled than she cares to admit that he hasn’t at least sent a text.

“Uh-huh,” Toast teases, clearly not fooled by her friend’s attempt at nonchalance.

Furiosa rolls her eyes and turns to look out the window again. Though she’s annoyed that he hasn’t contacted her yet, at least he has a good reason. Max won’t reach out to her; that much she’s sure of now. Not while he's still mourning the death of someone he'd undoubtedly loved.

The last thing he probably wants is some stranger he barely even knows trying to worm her way into his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story completely got away from me. I haven't done a multichap in years, so I forgot how important having, you know, a plan is. This is why you outline, folks. Back on track tho!


	6. Chapter 6

Three days a week at the asscrack of dawn, Furiosa works in her aunts’ bakery. The Many Mothers Bakery is mostly organic with an overwhelming variety of gluten free and low fat products, so of course every health-conscious customer within thirty miles frequents the store on a regular basis. For as long as she can remember the shop has been incredibly popular, and ever since she’d decided that money is a nice thing to have she’s been working there.

What’s funny about the whole is that the bakery had originally been little more than a front to launder money for the larger Vuvalini gang, but due to their popularity and as a result their increased visibility, they’d eventually decided it was safer to try to go legit. They still launder money, of course, but at much lower rates than they used to and instead funneling the dirty money through other much less successful businesses they have set up around the country.

Not that she’s allowed to know any of the details. Her aunts had made it perfectly clear that they don’t want her to continue the illegal side of the family business, instead hoping she’ll find her own path; one that _doesn’t_ involve the risk of twenty years in prison. She doesn’t mind, though. Contrary to what they believe she actually sort of enjoys baking.

Holding a tray of scones in one hand and balancing another between her hip and prosthetic, she carefully slides both pans into the sweltering oven with an ease made possible by years of accidental drops and turns. She usually has at least one of her aunts around to help but she’d gotten up extra early, leaving a note on the fridge to let them know she was already at the shop.

It isn’t like she’d _wanted_ to wake up at four o’clock in the morning. She normally can’t function until at least six, and it takes a full cup of coffee on top of that to even consider the idea of doing anything productive. It’s just that lately she can’t stop her mind from wandering to places where it has no business being.

And she isn’t really thinking about anything bad. She just constantly finds herself constantly going over the many possible ways that she can express to Max how sorry she is for what had happened to his girlfriend. But is it a good idea to bring it up when he himself hadn’t told her? Will he think that she’s being nosy? That she’d creepily looked him up on social media? Or is she just overthinking it all?

She’s mindlessly chopping her way through a peck of apples when a loud, booming voice startles her out of her musings. “You trying to lose a finger?”

It’s only through sheer luck that she doesn’t drop the knife on her foot, and she spins around to see her aunt Lulu staring back at her with a raised eyebrow. She’s usually the first one in and spends the most time in the bakery running the day to day operations, so she’s not exactly _surprised_ to see her so much as temporarily startled.

“It’s a bit hard to lose a finger on a hand you don’t have,” she returns once she’s sure she’s not about to have a heart attack.

Lulu cackles loudly, pulling the freshly baked scones from the oven and walking to the front of the story to arrange them in the empty display case. “Can’t argue with that now, can I?”

Furiosa tries to appear annoyed but finds it impossible to keep a small grin from sliding onto her face; the woman tends to have that effect on people. Most are intimidated by her size and loud, booming voice, but those who know her know that she’s arguably the warmest of her aunts. Sure, she’s wary of strangers, but when you deal in the world that they do a little wariness goes a long way towards keeping you out of jail or in the ground.

“What’s going on with you, Furi? You’re never up before six if you can help it.”

“I’m fine, just had a little trouble sleeping,” she says, picking up the knife she’d dropped and tossing it in the sink.

Lulu turns to look at her carefully, crossing her arms and leaning back against the front counter. “Is someone giving you trouble? Do we need to have a talk with that Moore boy again?”

So surprised as she hadn’t so much as _thought_ about Joe in weeks, she lets out a small laugh. “I’m not worried about that asshole at all. There’s just a lot going on right now.” Her aunt looks unconvinced, so she shrugs a shoulder. “Senior stuff.”

The woman hums skeptically but nods and moves to finish up the rest of the baking Furiosa hadn’t managed to get to. “As long as you’re alright. Just don’t do that thing you do where you bottle everything up inside until you explode.”

Furiosa cringes, remembering the last time she’d taken on too much alone and ended up having what can only be described as a nervous breakdown. It was before she had the girls to depend on, back when she felt isolated and that the only person she could truly trust was herself. It hadn’t ended well, to put it mildly, and led to a string of decisions ranging from poor to atrocious. She likes to think that her imaginary permanent record probably just has the word ‘bad’ stamped on it in big, bold letters.

They work to prep the store in relative silence for the next half hour. Mel arrives fifteen minutes later to give them a hand with the final few tasks until eventually six o’clock rolls around and it’s time to open. There are already a few people outside waiting when Furiosa goes to unlock the door, and she pastes on what she hopes is a welcoming smile.

She spends a full hour and a half taking orders and pouring coffee for both adults and students alike, and like usual, the line never seems to get any shorter; great for business, but devastating for her patience. Luckily a glance at the clock shows that she needs to leave within the next five minutes if she wants to have any hope of making it to school on time. Not to say that she particularly cares, but it doesn’t make sense to rack up an unnecessary tardy if she doesn’t have to—especially since the last thing she wants is to give the school an excuse to give her summer school, or worse, hold her back a year.

“Lulu, I’m heading out!” she calls, already untying her flour-dusted black apron and grabbing a blueberry muffin as she jogs to the back of the small building where her bike is waiting. She glances over her shoulder one last time to make sure that someone’s taken over the register for her, and satisfied to see Mel ringing up the next customer, slips on her jacket and backpack and books it out the back door to where her bike is parked.

As far as motorcycles go it’s nothing fancy. It’s a hand me down from her mother, a 2008 Honda CB250 Nighthawk, and though it’s probably meant for people a little smaller than her 5’9 frame, she loves it. It’s light, fast, agile, economical, and most importantly, stupidly easy to maintain. Her friends regularly try to talk her into upgrading to one of the newer crotchrockets with arguments like ‘They look cooler’ and ‘Black is such a boring color,’ but she fully plans on driving her bike into the ground.

It’s cooler outside than she’d expected so she throws on the scarf Keep had knitted for her followed by her gloves and then her helmet. The bike purrs to life as soon as she hits the starter, and within seconds she’s zipping out of the narrow alleyway and onto the quiet street towards her school.

She makes it into Citadel’s parking lot with plenty of time to spare thanks to a bit of ill-advised and reckless driving. Since she’s one of maybe five kids in the school who own and regularly drive a motorcycle, finding a place to park near the main building is a breeze.

Rather than go through the back to meet up with her friends at her locker, she marches right up the front steps and heads to class. The fatigue from her at most five hours of sleep is starting to catch up with her, so the instant her butt hits the seat of her desk, she puts her forehead on her folded her arms for a few minutes of rest until the first bell rings.

She doesn’t realize that she’s dozed off until an insistent buzzing in her pants snaps her awake. She can hear the droning sound of the teacher’s voice and cringes; apparently she’d slept through both the bell and roll call.

Keeping her head resting on her arms so as not to alert the teacher, she slips her phone out of her back pocket. A glance at the time shows that she’s been asleep for nearly a full half hour— apparently not even the teacher had thought it worth it to try to wake her. She opens her texts to see that she has a couple of missed messages from Angharad.

**Chat with Splendid**

**10:45pm  
** **Splendid: It looked like a soggy twinkie lol**

**Furiosa: gross**

**Splendid: Not even joking I am so sick of dudes. if I get one more dick snap....**

**Furiosa: Hahahahaha**

**8:55am  
** **Splendid: Hey what's wrong?**

**Splendid: You sick?**

She raises her head to see Angharad staring back at her with a concerned frown. When the girl mouths the words ‘ Are you okay,’ Furiosa shoots her a thumbs up; which apparently doesn’t work at all since the blonde’s frown only deepens. Sometimes her perceptiveness can be incredibly annoying.

Realizing that nothing short of telling her the full truth is going to assuage her friend’s worries— and there’s no way in hell that that’s going to happen—she sits up fully and reaches into her backpack for her materials. Maybe if she actually studies for once she’ll be able to keep her mind off of what to do about Max.

It works better than she’d expected, and before she knows it it’s time for her next class. Luckily it’s one she doesn’t share with any of her friends, so she's free to daydream in peace until the bell rings for first period lunch. She bypasses the lunchroom for the football field, hoping to find a little privacy. Rarely was anyone ever eating outside on the bleachers, especially with it being as cool out as it was.

She pulls out the muffin that she'd snagged on her way out of work and nibbles on the edge of its top. It's hard to explain, even to herself, why she's being so standoffish. She knows _intellectually_ that more heads working on a problem is a good idea, but she just can't win against her own stubbornness. She's always been the type to keep hammering away at a problem until she has it figured out—often and unfortunately to her own detriment.

She glances up when what sounds like a veritable crowd begins to climb the bleachers and is unsurprised to see that her friends had found her so quickly. There are only so many places in the school that she can actually hide.

They take up the seats around her, forming a half circle and giving her no possible route of escape.

Furiosa inwardly sighs; she knows when she’s been caught. “Hey.” She watches them silently try to figure out who’s going to be the first one to speak, communicating with a mixture of head and eye movements.

“Is everything okay?” Capable carefully asks, evidently drawing the short straw.

Furiosa shrugs. “Weather's nice. just felt like eating outside today.“

“You could've _told_ us,” Toast grumbles.

“Didn't know I had to report to you.” Furiosa herself is surprised by the hostility in her response; it hadn't been her intention to be so combative.

Cheedo can see Toast’s expression begin to darken, and being the type of person who absolutely hates it when people fight, quickly steps in. “Everyone calm down. We're together now; let’s just eat.”

They consume their lunches in relative silence which is odd enough for the group, but it’s the fact they keep looking over at her every few seconds that _really_ begins to grate on her nerves. Even Dag, who generally isn’t bothered by anything, is staring at her unabashedly with her head cocked curiously as she sips from her juicebox.

Finding it impossible to concentrate on her muffin with five pairs of eyes watching her, Furiosa sighs with exasperation. “ _What_?”

“We’re just really worried about you, Furi,” Angharad starts. “You’re doing that thing where you clearly need help but instead you try to shut everyone out to deal with the problem yourself. We're your friends; _talk_ to us.”

Furiosa bites her lip. It's the second time that day she's been called out for being aloof, so maybe they're right. Maybe it _is_ something that's too big for her to take on alone.

“Jesus, Cheedo, are you livestreaming this?!” Toast snaps, noticing the only freshman of the group holding up her phone at an angle that captures all of them in the frame.

Cheedo actually looks offended by the accusation, mouth falling open. “Of _course_ not, I’m just taking a photo to make up for this morning! It’s okay, right Furiosa? I always get way more user engagement from girls when you’re in the pictures.”

Furiosa rolls her eyes and shrugs, not understanding the appeal of documenting their outfits everyday—especially since her fashion choices are based largely on whatever's clean. And besides, she’d seen the thirsty comments about her from the girls who follow Cheedo. Once was more than enough.

Cheedo sticks her tongue out at Toast and then snaps the picture, failing to notice that the girl is holding up a middle finger in the background.

Angharad noisily clears her throat, and realizing that there's no way they'll leave her alone unless she talks, Furiosa lets out a breath through her nose.

“So,” she starts, grabbing the attention of her friends immediately, “There's this guy...” The words are barely out of her mouth good before there’s a rush of excited and disbelieving noises.

Cheedo gasps loudly. “Oh my God, _who?!_ ”

“Do we know him?” Capable asks.

“Do we need to _kill_ him?” the Dag whispers.

Angharad holds up a hand, silencing them all instantaneously. “Shut up! Let her finish!” She's trying to be mature for the rest of her friends, but she still can't hide the amusement dancing behind her bright blue eyes.

Seeing that she once again has their undivided attention, Furiosa continues. “Yeah, so, this guy. Max. He’s going through something horrible, and as far as I can tell he’s trying to deal with it alone. Mostly with alcohol, I think, and you all know I’ve…” she trails off, swallowing roughly. “I know that doesn’t work.”

The girls exchange knowing glances. Though only Angharad had actually been around when Furiosa went through her ‘rough patch’, almost everyone had heard the rumors about the one-armed girl who'd punch anyone in the face for so much as breathing in her general vicinity or throw her textbooks at any teacher who dared to call her out for, well, _anything_ . It's frankly a wonder she wasn't expelled, though she _had_ spent a hell of a lot of her sophomore year either suspended or in detention.

It got to the point where people had stopped inviting her to anything, but she'd show up half drunk to parties anyway just to ruin them. It wasn't until Angharad had reached out to her and told her that no, she _wasn't_ crazy, and yes, Joe _had_ been fucking with her head that she was able pull herself out of her dangerous downward spiral—though even now most kids still tend to give her a wide berth. Not that she minds.

“Devil’s advocate here, and not saying you _shouldn’t_ , but why do _you_ have to be the one to help him?” Capable wonders aloud.

“Because I had someone do it for _me_ . Who better?” Furiosa sighs and glances down at the half eaten muffin in her lap. “Look, if I can help him but I don't, and _then_ he ends up hurting himself or god forbid someone else…that's on me. I have enough demons following me around and I don't need another.”

The redhead sighs. She doesn’t _not_ want her to help, but it feels risky as Furiosa’s still trying to figure her own shit out. They _all_ are. Then again, it's also possible that helping someone else is just what her friend needs to move her further along in her healing process by giving her a project to work on, so with that thought in mind she reluctantly nods her head. “Well, okay, but we can’t really help with just his name and the vague mention of a problem. What's wrong with him? Do you know?”

“He’s the boyfriend of that Sun City girl who died a few months ago,” Toast offers, jumping back into the conversation. Furiosa shoots her a glare, and she innocently widens her eyes. “What? You started talking about him, I thought it was okay.”

“Oh my God, that poor guy!” Cheedo gasps again. She seems to be doing a lot of that.

“I can’t believe he’s already moved on from that,” Angharad remarks with a bit of awe.

Furiosa shakes her head. “He hasn’t, and that’s why I want to help him. Maybe not to move on, but…”

“We get it. Hmmm. That _is_ tough.” Angharad leans back on the cool metal and stares up at the sky as if the clouds themselves held the answers.

There is silence for so long that Furiosa begins to wonder if they’d fallen asleep. It's obvious that none of them have a lot of experience with something like this, but then how many people had lost someone they’d loved probably more than life itself? How many knew what it was like to look down path in front of them and see nothing but pain and suffering?

Surprising absolutely everyone, it’s Dag who speaks first. She thoughtfully tilts her head and rolls her eyes upwards, almost as though asking whatever god she’s praying to this week for wisdom.

“The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope.”

There’s another long, pregnant silence, and then Angharad’s slowly nodding her head in agreement. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Dag’s right. We need to show him that there’s still some joy to be found in life, even if he feels like his is over.“

“You got all _that_ from what Dag said?” Capable asks, jaw agape.

“And what’s this about _we_?” Toast grumbles.

Angharad crosses her arms and frowns. “Six friends is better than one, right? Don’t be selfish.”

Uneasy about this vague and frankly already disastrous sounding plan, Furiosa shakes her head. “I appreciate the offer, but that’s not what I— “

“You know, there’s a party at Entity’s house this Saturday and everyone’s saying that a bunch of Sun City kids are probably gonna crash it,” Cheedo offers, completely cutting off Furiosa’s protests.

Toast snorts in disbelief. “Are her parents _ever_ home?”

“They’re on a business trip in London or something, I dunno, who cares. So? Are we helping this guy Furi likes?”

Furiosa rubs her forehead and sighs. It’s hard to get mad at her friends, but annoyed? Easy. “I don’t _like_ him, and fine. If he’s actually there, I’ll introduce you and we can try to help him. _Together_.”

“Yesss! Operation ‘Help-Max-not-be-depressed-so-he-can-maybe-go-out-with-Furiosa’ is a go!” Cheedo cheers, clenching her fist in victory.

And even though she still sort of wants to strangle the lot of them, she can’t stop an exasperated smile from slipping onto her face as her friends put their heads together and begin to hash out the details. Watching them excitedly pitch conversational ideas and talk over each other, helping him suddenly feels a whole lot less impossible.


	7. Chapter 7

Since Angharad’s the only one of them with both a car _and_ a license, like usual they all have to squeeze into her tiny green Prius in order to make it to the party together. Luckily Cheedo and Toast are only big enough to make up one full person, and Dag’s so skinny that the short ride to the party isn’t that uncomfortable at all. Of course it’s easy for her to say since she has the front passenger seat to herself; a fact that she takes great joy in reminding her friends of every chance she gets.

“Can’t I just ride in Furiosa’s lap? Dag’s bony elbows keep digging into my ribs,” Toast whines from the seat behind her.

Angharad sighs and glares at her in the rear view mirror. “No matter how many times you ask the answer will always be no. It’s not safe.”

“Neither are Dag’s elbows,” she mutters, scowling at the thin girl sitting next to her. Her scowl deepens when Dag just tilts her head and smiles back airily.

Toast’s annoyance thankfully dies down once they reach the block that holds Entity’s obscenely large three story home. The party already looks to be in full swing and packed with kids she’s certain don’t go to her school. For one, there’s actual _diversity_. Citadel is a lot of things, but inclusive isn’t one of them despite what the pictures on their recruitment pamphlets and website would have everyone believe. Secondly, there are a lot fewer popped collars milling about on the front yard than usual—a welcome sight considering she usually can’t turn a corner without seeing one at her school.

The street is packed and there’s no parking to be found anywhere on that block, but they luckily manage to find something on squeeze into on the next block over.

And unlike the last time she’d gone to one of these Furiosa decides to lose her friends the moment the car has stopped, ignoring their shouts of betrayal as she jogs up the sidewalk to the house. Though the initial plan had been for the friendliest of the group—Cheedo and Capable—to accidentally bump into Max to break the ice and from there introduce Dag, Angharad, and Toast, at the last minute she doesn’t think it’s a particularly good idea to spring all of them on him right away. Drunk or not he’ll still be skittish and will definitely try to flee.

Besides, she kind of wants to talk to him on her own first.

She’d heard the music well before she got to the front door but the volume level when she steps inside is deafening. Kids are either spilling their alcohol everywhere while trying to dance or tucked close together in quiet corners doing things their parents probably won’t be all that pleased with. She takes a deep, steadying breath before she pushes her way through the throngs of writhing teens as if on a mission, barely avoiding the limbs of her classmates or worse, getting sloshed with some mystery drink.

She thankfully finds him almost immediately in the kitchen, correctly assuming that he'd be wherever the alcohol is. The familiar pair of broad shoulders are unmistakable as he struggles to open a bottle of beer, and she might have found it funny if he didn’t already look like he was teetering on the edge of completely blitzed.

She strides over at a pace that can possibly be called jogging until she’s standing right next to him. When it becomes obvious that he hasn’t noticed her—he seems awfully invested in failing to open his beer—she nudges him with her shoulder. “Hi.”

Like he’d been shocked Max jumps a bit as he glances up at her. It takes a couple of seconds for his eyes to focus and recognition to dawn but then he just grunts a reply, returning to trying to open the stubborn bottle.

Seeing how much trouble he’s having with such a simple problem she can’t stop herself from chuckling. “That’s not a twist off. Here—” she grabs the bottle from his hand before he can protest and places the cap against a small groove in her prosthesis. With a quick downward movement the cap flies off and a small wisp of smoke floats from the now open bottle. She takes a long swig for herself first and then holds it out to him with a smirk.

“Neat trick,” he mumbles grudgingly, grabbing the drink back from her and draining half of it in one go. A small amount of the beer escapes the edge of his lips, rolling down his chin to soak into his black t-shirt.

Watching the trail of liquid as it slides down his neck she unwittingly licks her lips, her throat suddenly feeling a bit dry. “You’re welcome.” She opens and closes her mouth a few times, struggling to figure out what to say to him next. He looks like he’s already having a rough night so bringing up his dead girlfriend right away probably isn’t the best idea. “So, this doesn’t exactly seem like your scene.”

Max raises a dubious eyebrow at her. “Don’t seem like yours, either.”

She can’t argue that; especially considering the first time they’d met she’d been trying to run _away_ from the party. “I thought I could run into you here since you haven’t texted me.”

He takes another long pull of his Bud Light and shrugs. “Didn’t have a reason to.”

She frowns deeply, surprised by the small pang in her chest. She can't believe she actually feels hurt by someone she barely knows, but what did she expect? That she would show up here and he’d be happy to see her? That he’d be willing to accept her help? Apparently she’d assumed too much. Like usual her pain quickly gives way to anger, and she has to clench her fist to keep herself calm.

“Okay. Bye.” She turns on her heel and is about to look for her friends to tell them the plan is off, but then she feels five large fingers wrap lightly around her forearm.

“Furiosa, wait.” When she turns to look at him, her sharp blue eyes a storm of barely concealed disappointment, he lowers his gaze to the ground. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant—” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “M’not good at—you know—”

She can see the conflict on his face as he struggles to explain himself and finds that she can’t stay upset with him for long. Which, in a way, is enormously worrying; she usually doesn’t let _anything_ go this quickly, misunderstanding or not. “Don’t worry about it. If I’m bothering you, just say so.” She pulls her arm out of his grip to cross them, steeling herself for his answer.

Max raises his eyes back up to hers, meeting them with as steady a gaze as he can manage in his inebriated state. “You’re not. M’glad you're here.” A small, roguish grin slides onto his face. “You're much better at opening bottles than I am.”

She snorts quietly, trying not to smile because she hasn’t _fully_ forgiven him yet, and instead glances over the selection of beer sitting on the obscenely large kitchen island. Unsurprisingly pretty much all of it is shit, the most prevalent brands being Pabst Blue Ribbon and Miller Lite. How anyone can stomach the swill is beyond her. “You know if there’s anything better to drink around here?”

He grins a bit wider and bends down to open a cabinet like it’s his own house, pulling out a green bottle with a red and gold label on it. She doesn’t question how he knew it was there, instead just taking the offered bottle with a wide, appreciative grin. So much for trying not to smile. “Dos Equis. Still shitty, but definitely an improvement.”

He waits for her to pop the cap off of her beer and take a swig before he speaks again, a small but noticeable twinkle in his eyes. “Underage drinking is illegal, y’know.”

Furiosa pauses mid-sip to stare in disbelief, because had he just cracked a joke? “Aren’t you _younger_ than me?”

“My fake ID says no.”

She snorts out a laugh and rolls her eyes. Apparently when he’s drunk but not _quite_ wasted he turns into a little shit, but then he starts to reach for another beer and her frown returns. Maybe getting him away from temptation would prevent a repeat performance of the first time they’d met. She doesn’t have a chance to relocate him as all five of her friends burst into the kitchen in such impressive order that she has to wonder if they regularly practice breaching a room when she’s not around.

“ _There_ she is! And—oh, is this…?” Capable trails off, looking to Furiosa for confirmation.

“This is Max. Max, this is Angharad, Capable, Toast, Cheedo, and the Dag,” Furiosa says, pointing at each one of them in turn. She can’t help but notice that he instantly clams up, but then they tend to have that effect on a lot of guys. If he’s at all curious about their odd names he doesn’t show it, nodding at them with a wary expression.

Capable is the first of her friends to speak, walking right up to them and giving Max her normally knee weakening megawatt smile. “You go to Sun City, right? Are you in any clubs over there?”

He glances over at Furiosa anxiously before answering. “Played football.“

“Not anymore?” she asks, smile fading a bit.

He shakes his head and takes another drink, eyes darting around the room as though he’s looking for an escape route; and based on what Furiosa knows of him, he probably is.

“What's your house?” Cheedo asks next from behind Capable, looking entirely too serious.

Max stares blankly at her. “House…?”

The girl sighs as if she’s talking to the stupidest person on Earth, rolling her eyes seemingly with her entire body. “Your _Hogwarts_ house. You know, Harry Potter?”

“Oh, ah...Hufflepuff…?”

Furiosa doesn't know whether to be more surprised that he'd answered or that he actually _knew_. He honestly doesn't seem like the type to care, and with a little thought thinks that it was probably Jessie who had forced him to sign up and be sorted; Cheedo had done it to her, after all.

Cheedo instantly breaks out into an excited smile, bouncing up and down a little. “Oh my god, me too! We can _totally_ be friends now.” She continues to chatter on about how Hufflepuffs are the backbone of the Harry Potter universe, every now and then asking him bits of trivia or educating him on the finer points of their house’s history while he just nods along awkwardly.

The room suddenly sounds a whole lot louder than Furiosa remembers, and a glance around the kitchen shows that ever since her friends had entered the kitchen the number of guys standing around had _quadrupled_. They're usually not so oblivious, but the girls were probably so focused on finding her that they hadn’t even noticed they were being followed.

She can see in the way the boys glance over—or in a few cases, just outright stare—that they’re looking for a moment to approach one or all of them. One of the little discussed downsides of being friends with five very attractive women is that blending in anywhere is virtually impossible.

“We should go somewhere quieter,” Furiosa suggests, turning back to her friends and a very overwhelmed looking Max.

Toast shrugs around her red solo cup of whatever bright pink liquid she’d picked up in the five minutes it’d taken her to get from the car to the kitchen. “We can go to the basement? They smoke weed down there, but there are couches and shit.” She notices Max inching away from them and shoots a hand out to grab his forearm with a surprisingly strong grip. “ _You_ come too,” she demands, pulling him towards the door _not_ currently crowded by testosterone.

He looks like he's about to make a break for the French doors leading to the backyard until two hands gently push him from behind, effectively cutting off any chance he has of getting away. He _just_ manages to snag a second Bud Light on the way out, and with Toast leading the way they follow her through the throngs of bodies and down the stairs where the air is indeed a whole lot smokier but also much quieter. They immediately take over two of the empty couches, forcing Max to sit snugly in between Cheedo and Furiosa, and he braces himself for the bombardment of conversation that he’s undoubtedly going to be forced to endure.

To Furiosa’s immense surprise the conversation goes unexpectedly smooth for the first couple of hours or so. Mostly they talk around him, lulling him into a false sense of security so that every now and then they can ask him a question related to whatever they’re talking about. She’s amazed at their ability to pry all kinds of information from him and so far she's learned more about him than she would've on her own, not the least of which is his favorite color (blue), favorite animal (dog), favorite food (whatever's around), and favorite way to unwind (going to the shooting range).

At the mention of weapons Toast immediately perks up. She proudly shows off the very illegal set of brass knuckles she keeps on her person and even manages to extract a promise out of Max to take her and Furiosa along the next time he goes to the shooting range—much to Angharad's chagrin. It’s no secret to anyone how she feels about guns, often referring to bullets as anti-seeds, so she steers the conversation back to safer topics.

“Do you play any instruments?” Angharad asks Max, glaring at Toast so that she’ll stop asking questions about guns.

“Guitar. M’not very good though,” he shrugs, frowning at his now empty bottle of beer.

Furiosa scoffs. “Oh, please. You’re plenty good.” She regrets it as soon as she says it when five pairs of eyes swivel around to stare at her. Maybe that one bottle of beer had loosened her tongue more than she’d thought.

“You’ve heard him play? When?” Capable asks from her right, grinning entirely too much.

“He came over for dinner once, it wasn’t a big deal.”

Cheedo clucks her tongue and shakes her head, trying and failing to look disappointed. “Are you keeping secrets from us now, Furiosa?”

“I just forgot,” she says unconvincingly. She can see the gears turning in her friends’ heads, but before they can say anything else she’s thankfully saved by Dag suddenly sitting forward to stare intently at Max.

“Left hand,” she demands, holding her own out towards him.

Toast rolls her eyes. “Here we go,” she mumbles. Cheedo nudges her none too gently in response, giving her a cross look. “What? You _know_ it's fake.”

Max is too confused to move, so Dag leans further forward across Cheedo to grab his hand herself. She turns it palm side up and gently traces the lines that make up his palm. He looks amused by whatever she’s trying to do, the corner of his lips twitching upwards, but when he tries to pull away she only grips the hand tighter; whatever she's seeing must be especially fascinating.

And though she knows that her friend’s intentions are purely innocent, deep down Furiosa feels a bit jealous watching the girl run her fingertips over the surface of his hand. She wishes she had that same boldness; Dag never lets anything get in the way of doing what she wants to do. Which gets her into a hell of a lot of trouble sometimes, but still.

“There's great happiness in your past,” Dag starts, silencing the bickering because even if they don’t particularly believe in palm reading they’re curious about what she’s going to say, but then her eyebrows furrow. “and—oh, even greater sorrow.”

Max twitches, smile immediately slipping off of his face though the girl holding his hand doesn’t seem to notice at all. “Your guardian angel line says that you lost someone close to you when you were young; maybe around four or five? It's a very strong line, so they really loved you.”

Capable watches the scene uneasily. “Dag, maybe you should stop,” she murmurs.

“Why?” Dag asks, looking up at her briefly before returning to squinting at his palm. “I see some minor injuries in your life line, nothing major. Your heart line says you're an only child? And yet you've already experienced a lot of emotional trauma, rare for someone your age—”

“Stop it,” Max snaps. He looks a bit shaken, snatching his wrist back and leaning away from the girl to lean more heavily on Furiosa—who looks just as bewildered as he does.

She's had her palm read by Dag before, but seeing as how the left hand that she conveniently lacks is supposed to tell the secrets of a person’s past, she’s never been able to verify for herself exactly how full of shit the fortunes are. According to the lines on her right hand, though, she's supposed to live a financially comfortable life with a long marriage and two healthy children—a prediction that's laughable at best and leads her to believe that palmistry is definitely fake.

That said, she _really_ wants to ask him exactly how much of what Dag had predicted is true.

Dag cocks her head, ostensibly confused by his reaction. “Don't you want me to read your right palm? I can tell you about your future.”

His eyes widen and he looks terrified by the idea, shaking his head like she’d just asked him if he would like a nice punch in the face, and it’s at this point where Furiosa realizes she should probably do something to help him out. It’s sort of her fault he’s in the situation to begin with, after all.

Furiosa shrugs the shoulder he’s half hiding behind/half leaning against to get his attention. “You ready to get out of here?” she asks, low enough so that only he can hear her clearly.

The relief that pours onto Max’s face is immediate, and he shakily nods his head. He wastes no time in trying to stand but only gets about halfway up before his legs seem to give out beneath him. He sinks back into the couch with an ‘oomph’, earning a round of amused giggles from the girls.

Furiosa herself manages not to laugh at his plight, though it’s damn near impossible to keep a smirk from spreading across her face. She stands first to help him to his feet and then slips an arm around his midriff to steady his swaying. Once she’s certain he’s not going to fall on his face, she slings his arm over her shoulders so that he can lean more heavily against her.

“We’re gonna head out. You okay to drive everyone home?” She asks Angharad even though she’s sure it’s fine. She and Angharad were careful to only have one drink, making it last as long as possible since chances are one or both of them would need to drive.

The blonde shoots her a smirk and a thumbs up. “All good.” She then looks over at Max with a surprisingly sincere smile—a pretty big deal coming from her. “It was great meeting you, Max.” The other girls chime in with their own goodbyes, and when Max tries to nod in return his head just drops into his chest, earning a fresh round of laughter.

Furiosa waves at them from over her shoulder, leading him over to the stairs. “Don’t stay too late.”

“Nice one, Dag,” she hears Toast mutter behind her. “Your healing energy palm reading bullshit _definitely_ helped.”

Sounding completely unconcerned, Dag shrugs. “Often it requires a breakdown to breakthrough.”

She doesn’t hear Toast’s reply as they’re already at the top of the stairs where the party doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. The music is just as loud as it had been when she’d arrived, and the only real difference is that everyone’s definitely a hell of a lot drunker. Unfortunately, she still gets some looks as she drags Max to the back door that vary between amused and astonished. She can almost imagine what they’re thinking: Furiosa, Citadel High’s resident crazy dyke, going home with a _guy_? The headline practically writes itself.

“Where’d you park this time?” she asks once they’re outside in the frigid night air. She hadn’t realized how hot it was inside until now and is thankful for her leather jacket.

“Mm...that way, I think,” he rumbles, pointing somewhere off to the left.

She sighs and kicks open the gate, looking in the direction of his finger. “You’re killing me, Max.” They luckily only have to walk for a couple of minutes before she spots his car; it can’t be missed amongst the BMWs and Mercedes littering the street.

She holds her hand out once they reach the car and smiles when he doesn’t complain this time, reaching into his pocket and pressing his car keys into her palm.

It takes a bit of careful maneuvering to get him situated in his passenger seat, and by the time time she’s behind the wheel she feels a little out of breath. Though they’re roughly the same height, he’s definitely much more dense. “Max? Wake up, you need to tell me where you live. I’m not taking you home with me again.”

“Your bed’s more comfortable,” he whines sleepily.

“Still, I’ll get in trouble.” When Max pouts—actually _pouts—_ she finds the sight both so endearing and frustrating that she can only shake her head. “Fine, but if I get chewed out I’m throwing you under the bus _immediately_.”

Max smiles at her in a way that she can only see as smug. “S’ok, I’m sturdy.”

Rather than dignify him with the reply that he’s clearly looking for, she simply rolls her eyes and pulls away from the curb to head home. It’s a short drive, and since he isn’t nearly as drunk as he was the last time she’d brought him home, they get inside the house and up the stairs to her room in record time. Luckily the moon is bright enough to where she doesn’t need to turn on her bedroom light so she doesn’t have to fumble around for the light switch while carrying a 180lb boy.

Furiosa throws him down on her bed and is both pleased and thankful when he can actually kick his own boots off; she doesn’t know how he ties them, but it was a bitch to loosen the strings last time. She removes a few of her own items of clothing so that she’s left barefoot in her flannel shirt and jeans. She considers removing her prosthetic right away too, but she figures she might need it for a little bit longer.

She turns around to address him—only to find he’d stripped all the way down to a thin white t-shirt and is staring at her in a way that leaves her feeling somewhat awkward. She clears her throat and moves to head downstairs. “I’ll get you some water. You need to drink something if you don’t want to have a massive hangover in the morning.”

She doesn’t wait for his reply, instead taking the steps two at a time until she’s in the kitchen. She’s not sure why she feels so embarrassed around him all of a sudden but there’s no denying the heat she can feel creeping up her neck and flooding into her cheeks. Intellectually she knows that he’s just drunk and most likely doesn’t know _what_ he’s looking at and he’d just removed his clothing to get comfortable. _Emotionally_ , though…

Shaking her head to concentrate on the task at hand she pulls two glasses from the cupboard and fills them both with water. A bottle of her half finished gatorade sitting on the countertop catches her eye so grabs that too—it’s got electrolytes or something and is much better at combating dehydration than plain water according to Angharad.

“Max up there?” a quiet voice asks from behind her, walking into the kitchen.

It might have scared her if she wasn’t expecting Maddi to still be up, however the woman never goes to bed without knowing that she’s made it home safe. “Yeah, he met the girls and it went a little long. I didn’t want him to have to drive home so late.”It’s not a _total_ lie but it’s definitely not the truth, a fact that Maddi immediately picks up on if the narrowing of her eyes is to be believed.

“He drunk?” When Furiosa just shrugs, the woman sighs. “I’m not sure I want that boy in our home anymore if this is going to become a regular thing. Once is a mistake, twice is a pattern.”

“He needs help, Maddi. I’m not just gonna throw him out.”

“I understand you _think_ it’s your responsibility to fix him, and we’ve indulged whatever it is you two have going on because you have a good head on your shoulders and it was making you happy, but enough is enough. I don’t see how letting him get drunk and then sleep it off in your room is doing _either_ of you any good.”

Exasperated, the teen throws a hand up. “That’s not what’s happening. You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me, Furiosa.” She waits a bit for her niece’s answer, and when she doesn’t say anything, Maddi sighs again. “He can stay tonight, but this is the last time.”

The teen feels her temper flare and her pulse jump in her veins. She forces herself to keep the volume of her voice low and fully turns to look at her aunt with her mouth tightened into a thin line. “Okay. Then I’ll just go to _his_ house from now on.”

They stare each other down for a silent minute, Maddi with her hands on her hips while Furiosa with her arms crossed. Eventually the older woman has to back down, shaking her head at the resolute expression on her niece’s face. It’s the same one she’d seen on Furiosa’s mother’s face dozens of times up until she died, and she knows a losing battle when she sees it. And much like her mother before her, Furiosa doesn’t bluff.

“No, bring him here where I can keep an eye on you. But you need to do something about this self destructive pattern of behavior of his. If he starts bringing you down with him—”

“I will. I _am_.”

Maddi rubs her forehead looking equal parts annoyed and exhausted. “You’ve always had too big of a heart, Furi, but fixing him won't fix you.”

Furiosa nods and swallows down her remaining anger. She _hates_ fighting with her aunts. She's so incredibly grateful for everything they've done and continue to do for her, raising her like their own after her mothers had died, that she does everything she can not to cause them undue stress. Especially Maddi; out of all of her aunts, Maddi is the only one who’d really leaned into the caregiver role—possibly because she already had experience raising her own daughter, Valkyrie.

And she knows that while the rest of her aunts all love her, they aren’t exactly the motherly type. They’re more than happy to let her fall flat on her face and learn things the hard way.

Furiosa takes a deep breath and relaxes her shoulders, gathering up the water and gatorade in her arms. “Love you, Maddi,” she tosses over her shoulder on the way back up the stairs.

The woman waves her off. “Yes, yes, I love you too.”

The lights on the first floor go out as Furiosa enters her room, and she silently helps Max sit up against her headboard before handing him his glass of water. She sits on the edge of the bed and stares at him as he drains most of the cup followed by the Gatorade in short order, sipping slowly on her own drink even though she doesn’t particularly want it.

She notices that he looks embarrassed, his ears and cheeks a light red and quickly spreading to the rest of his face, and it’s then that she realizes he’d most likely heard bits and pieces of their conversation.

“I’ll go down to my car, sleep it off there,” he mumbles glumly after a few seconds.

Furiosa frowns at his statement. She _should_ be more stern with him like Maddi had not so subtly suggested but she just _can’t_ and it’s maddening. “Shut up, you still have another cup to go,” she mutters, handing him her glass and pushing lightly on the bottom of it. She waits until he drains the glass before speaking again. “Getting drunk won’t help you forget...whatever it is you're running from,” she says emphatically, careful to be vague with her advice. She isn’t quite ready to let him know what she’d found out about his girlfriend.

Max shrugs his shoulders. “Beats drugs.”

Against her will she finds herself smirking a little. “True enough, but I’m serious, Max. You need to stop this. I…” she swallows roughly and stares down at her lap, finding what she has to say extremely difficult when he's looking right at her. “I’m worried about you.”

There's a long pause then, and she's far too afraid to see his reaction. She’s anxious that showing her concern will have the opposite effect and only serve to push him away, but then he replies and she’s understandly relieved by his answer. “I’ll...try.”

Watching him beat himself up is only making her feel worse, so she quickly changes the subject to something lighter. “What do you think of my friends?”

He leans back against her headboard and tilts his chin up in thought. “They’re…” he starts before pausing again to think of a suitable description. “A lot.”

And she has to laugh at that because that’s exactly what they are and in so many different ways that he’s not even aware of yet. “Can’t argue with that. But they’re dependable. And loyal.” She takes a small breath and attempts to project an air of casualness. “By the way, how much of what Dag said was true? About your past?”

“You believe in that stuff?” Max grunts.

Furiosa shrugs. “Depends on your answer.”

He considers her question for long enough that she has to see if he’d fallen asleep, but a glance at his face shows that he’s just very deep in thought. “Enough of it,” he replies vaguely. He smiles a bit sadly then, his face illuminated by the moonlight coming through her window, and she once again thinks that he really is attractive. As soon as the thought crosses her mind she squashes it because there’s no way in hell she’s going to allow herself to develop feelings and holds out her hand to him insistently. “Give me your phone again.”

“You’re awful bossy tonight,” he jokes. Still, he digs into his pocket and nonchalantly hands it over with a slight, teasing grin spreading across his face.

“I'm told I'm always bossy _all_ of the time.” She opens his contacts to add herself in and is surprised to find that at some point during the night the girls had apparently already added their numbers to his phone; how they’d managed to do that without either her or Max noticing is beyond her. Shrugging, she pushes the call icon next to her name to ring herself from his phone and then hangs up before tossing his device back to him. “Since you’re not going to call _me_ , I’ll call _you_.”

And almost as quickly as it had come, the smile slips from his face. He works his jaw as though trying to figure out what to say, and finally he just sighs and looks her straight in the eye. “What do you want from me, Furiosa?”

Furiosa blinks. It’s a hard question to answer, and one she didn’t expect. Does she want to help him? One hundred percent. Are her motives completely sincere? Probably not, and she can fully admit that, but what her motives actually _are_ , though, even _she’s_ not sure. “I don’t really want anything. For you to be okay, and your friendship, maybe.”

He looks even more confused, brows furrowing. “Why?”

Somehow, telling him the complete truth doesn’t seem like a good idea. She wants to help him, of course, but she also feels a weird sort of connection with him; one built on the pain of losing a loved one in such a devastating and unexpected way and attempting to self medicate with a bunch of bad decisions. She doesn’t have a reason that she’s actually willing to share yet, though, so instead she just shrugs lamely.

Max is silent for long enough that she’s about to tell him to forget the whole thing, but then he nods. “Okay.”

“Okay?” she repeats, trying not to appear too hopeful.

He shyly holds up a hand to her. “Friends.”

His hand is at the completely wrong angle and hard to grab a hold of but she takes it anyway and smiles, wider than she means to, and he smirks right back. They stare at each other _just_ long enough to make it awkward and she’s surprisingly the first to break, clearing her throat and gently sliding her hand out of his grip.

“We should sleep,” she suggests, turning away from him to slide her legs over the edge of the bed and remove her jeans. She pushes them down and off her legs while just as quickly quickly pulling up the pajama pants she already has sitting on the ground. She then removes her flannel before unhooking her harness and letting her prosthesis fall gently onto the ground next to her bed, leaving her in only a thin white t-shirt. The last thing she removes is her bra from beneath her shirt and then she sighs at the feeling of complete freedom, rolling her shoulders and stretching her arms to remove some of the stiffness borne of the torture devices she has to wear.

It’s not until she lies down and gets beneath her quilt that she chances another look at him. He’s already out, lying down with his mouth half open and a surprisingly soft snore escaping. His arm is resting at an odd angle above his head, causing the bottom of his shirt to ride up and reveal the bottom part of his stomach.

The bed’s a queen and large enough that they don’t have to touch each other, but she scoots _just_ close enough so that their bare arms meet. She’s well aware that she shouldn’t be so comfortable with a strange boy sleeping in her bed, and maybe in the morning when he’s sober he’ll forget the entire night even happened, but still—

They’re friends.


	8. Chapter 8

Bored is the only emotion she can use to describe how she feels sitting in her AP humanities class. She isn’t sure why the hell she has to it in the first place; she’d changed her mind long ago about the whole four year university thing, but Maddi had _insisted_ that she finish what she started in order to keep her options open.

And because she truly doesn’t give a shit, it shows; she’s barely managing a C in the class. Her one saving grace is that Angharad and Capable are both suffering along with her, and both are willing to let her copy their homework and borrow their notes when it’s time to take tests. She feels bad about relying so much on them, but not bad enough to actually pay attention and/or study.

That said she’ll _gladly_ sit through another five hours of learning about Renaissance poetry than go to her next appointment. Her guidance counselor, Ms. Giddy, is waiting to talk to her about her ‘future.’ She’d blow it off if she could, but at Citadel it’s mandatory to meet with them at least once a semester if you want to graduate, and thankfully, this is the last one she’ll ever need to have.

Right before the bell rings for lunch she fires off a quick text to let her group know not to wait up and reluctantly shoulders her bag. Dragging her feet won’t make it end any faster, and the sooner she gets to counselor’s office the sooner she can get on with the rest of her life.

The hallway outside of her classroom is packed with rambunctious teenagers, and just as she’s considering finding another way around, the sea of students splits once they notice her standing there. She has to fight down a smile as she strides through the crowd, thankful for her terrifying reputation considering she hadn’t punched _that_ many people.

She makes it to the office with time to spare, and like usual the door is already wide open when she arrives. Ms. Giddy truly believes in an open door policy and only ever closes it when she’s privately speaking with someone. She pokes her head inside and is unsurprised to see that the office looks exactly the same as the last time she’d been there almost six months ago, even down to the cheap, disgusting hard candy that literally _no one_ under forty likes.

She plops down in one of the chairs and regards the white-haired old woman behind the desk with as bored of a stare as she can manage, arms crossed tightly over her chest and both legs spread wide to make it clear that she’d rather be anywhere else. Especially since their last meeting hadn’t gone very well; things had gotten a bit heated towards the end as the woman had refused to accept that she didn’t want to go to college.

Completely ignoring Furiosa’s attitude, the woman looks up from the file she’s reading and smiles brightly. “Oh, come on, these meetings aren’t _that_ bad,” she jokes, putting down her papers and standing up to walk around her desk. She perches on the edge of it, crossing her legs and smoothing the dark blue skirt of her suit. “So? How have things been since the last time we spoke?”

Furiosa shrugs. “Fine.”

“Still working in your aunts’ bakery?”

“Yep.”

“Are you considering that job a long term thing? Maybe something you want to turn into a career?”

She just shrugs again and makes a big show of glancing at the clock hanging from the wall on her right.

Realizing that she’s not going to get any solid answers, Ms. Giddy sighs. “Alright, let’s get right into it then. I’m concerned about your future, Furiosa. Your grades have dropped, you’re constantly tardy, your teachers are reporting low class engagement...”

Furiosa can’t stop the small smirk that appears on her face at that. “It’s a couple steps up from when I was throwing my textbooks at them.”

“True,” the woman chuckles, shaking her head with exasperation. She leans back on her desk and stares down at her student, tilting her head a bit in thought. “You know, I still remember that long haired, bright eyed freshman who came bouncing into my office on the first day of school wanting advice on how to get the most out of her high school career. Do _you_ remember?” She waits for a reply, and when it becomes apparent that the girl isn’t planning to speak, she continues. “She wanted to go to Yale, get a graduate degree, possibly study law...she wanted to _help_ people. What changed?”

Furiosa almost laughs at the question. There’s something hilarious about one of the first people she’d gone to for help back when she was dating a controlling, sexually abusive sociopath asking her ‘What changed.’ Especially since that same person had done nothing because ‘Oh that can’t be right he’s such a charming young man’ or ‘Oh but he’s the star quarterback’ or ‘Oh his father’s a senator.’ In fact, pretty much everyone had had the same reaction; no one wanted to believe an unknown freshman over the school’s golden boy.

And sure, sometimes...sometimes she just wants to go back to being the idealistic, happy person she was before she fully understood how the world works—before she understood that it would run you over and tear you apart the second you dared open yourself up to it. She misses the time when the future felt full of possibilities, and the more she dwells on it the angrier she gets.

All humor now gone from her face, Furiosa crosses her arms tighter and scoffs. “That girl isn’t me. It was _never_ me.”

“Then tell me—who are you, Furiosa? What does _this_ Furiosa want?” Ms. Giddy asks, latching onto the first real statement her student has made.

“What I want doesn’t involve dropping two hundred thousand dollars on a piece of paper,” Furiosa sneers. She knows how big the woman is on university and is more satisfied than she cares to admit by the deep frown that appears on her face.

Ms. Giddy shakes her head and sighs. “I don’t know what happened in the last three years to make you so disenfranchised with education, but this is your life we’re talking about. I don’t want you to waste your potential because of whatever this…” she trails off, motioning towards her hair and clothing. “Interesting phase is.”

Furiosa digs her fingernails into the leather of her jacket and grits her teeth so hard that it’s beginning to give her a headache. She likes Ms. Giddy—she really does—but if anyone doesn’t fit into her narrow idea of what a good student should be she can be absolutely unbearable at times. She wholeheartedly appreciates everything the woman had done for her early in her high school career and helping her avoid expulsion, but somehow the woman either lacks the ability to understand her point of view or she simply doesn’t _want_ to. “Can I go now?”

Ms. Giddy frowns even more. She knows a losing battle when she sees one. “Fine. But please know that you can come talk to me anytime for advice, even after you graduate. I’ll miss speaking with you, Furiosa.”

Furiosa wastes no time in getting to her feet, nodding a quick goodbye, and striding out of the room. She feels a little bit better once she’s a good ten yards from the office but she still really doesn’t feel up to meeting up with her friends for the rest of the lunch period, nor going to her next class; it’ll be impossible to pay attention with the anger pumping through her veins anyway. She needs to get out, and as soon as humanly possible.

On a whim she reaches into her pocket for her smartphone. It doesn’t take her long to scroll through her relatively sparse contacts list until she lands on Max’s name and then she’s staring at the little green phone icon, wondering if she should really call him for such a stupid reason. Sure, they’ve been keeping in regular contact through text since the party, but this will be their first time actually meeting up on _purpose_. Besides, he’s most likely in class trying to learn just like she’s supposed to be.

Still, she can _really_ use the distraction, and if he doesn’t want to hang out he’ll just say so. With that thought in mind she takes a calming deep breath and presses the button to call him. It rings nearly five full times before he answers, right as she’s about to give up on the entire idea.

“Furiosa?” he answers, voice almost a whisper.

“Hi. What’re you doing right now?” She hears something in the background that sounds like angry shouting, the laughter of students, and then the closing of a door before he speaks again, louder this time.

“Nothing.”

“Can you pick me up? I’ll be at the Taco Bell by my school,” she asks, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice.

He pauses for only a beat before answering. “Okay. Gimme fifteen.”

Relief immediately floods through her, shoulders relaxing for the first time that morning. “Cool. See you in a bit.” She hangs up and allows herself to smile a bit at how easy it was to convince him to cut school.

She sneaks out the back of the building to avoid being caught by a teacher, unfortunately needing to leave her bike behind as a result, but it’s only around a five or ten minute walk to the restaurant if she takes her time. It's not too full when she arrives and she's able to order something to eat almost immediately, requesting her usual meal of a chalupa, cinnamon twists, and a Baja Blast slushie. After a bit of thought she also gets a couple of extra tacos just in case Max is hungry when he arrives since she _is_ the one who called him out.

It’s a rare treat when she gets to eat bad fast food, so she’s more excited about the fake Mexican food than she should be. Her aunts and _especially_ Maddi hate anything overly processed, so moments like these are the only times she can really indulge. Even when she’s with her friends Angharad will usually veto any restaurant that doesn’t have decent vegan options.

She's just sitting down with her food when she hears the thunder of his car as it pulls into the parking lot. She waits for him to shuffle into the building and then immediately waves him over to where she’s staked out in the back corner.

He doesn’t quite smile when he meets her eyes, but she can see in the way that his eyebrows unfurrow that he’d been concerned about her. He takes the seat across from her and grabs one the cinnamon twists off of her tray, popping it into his mouth and swallowing it all in one fluid movement. “You okay?”

The happiness she’d felt at his arrival immediately lessens as she remembers the reason she’d call him out in the first place. “I’m fine, just had a meeting with my guidance counselor," she grumbles.

“Bad news?”

Furiosa snorts. “More like a bullshit waste of time. I can’t wait until I’m done with school.”

He’s silent for a moment, head cocked a bit as he stares at her consideringly. “What’re you doing? After school, I mean.”

A little surprised that he's asking, Furiosa stares up at him. So far the few conversations they’ve had have been relatively light and noninvasive, so this is the first time that he’s shown any clear interest in her life.

“I dunno, probably work in my Aunt’s bakery for a couple years. If I get sick of this town I might ride around with my aunts’ gang for awhile, but I’m definitely not going to college.”

“Your aunts are in a _gang_?” he asks incredulously, completely ignoring everything else she’d said.

“Retired now, but yeah, they’re called the Vuvalini. Think the Hell’s Angels, but bigger, made up of only women, and much scarier.” What’s funny is that it’s not even an exaggeration. There are literally thousands of Vuvalini around the world, and one of the things that make them so dangerous is their uncanny accuracy with a rifle. Hell, one of the gang’s credos is infamously ‘One man, one bullet,’ and she’s seen her own mother consistently hit a steel plate from 600 yards with an SKS rifle. Which is pretty impressive considering most people can only be consistent from around 500 on a completely still day.

He’s silent as he mulls over this new bit of information, nodding to himself after a couple of seconds. “That...that actually makes a lot of sense.”

Furiosa leans back in her seat and gives him a playful smile. “Eh, it’s kind of an open secret, but if you tell anyone I’ll have to kill you.” She’s joking, of course, and she can’t help but feel unreasonably pleased by the look of mild apprehension that appears on his face; at least until she realizes that doesn’t know of his plans for the future, either. She hasn’t really considered the idea of him leaving. “What’re you doing when you graduate?”

Max scratches at the day old stubble on his jaw, squints, and then shrugs. “Dunno. Military, maybe.”

“The military? _Why_?” she asks, trying not appear too worried. Lulu had been in the military, and she’d always said that the only reason to join the military is if you’ve hit rock bottom and have absolutely nothing good going for you in life. And she knows Max has lost a lot in his life already, but she doesn’t want him to just take the easiest path available to him. She wants him to excel in something that he truly wants to do, and _yes_ , she doesn’t want him going halfway around the world.

“Don’t know what else to do. M’not exactly a genius.”

“Still, there’s a lot more opportunities out there than the military. Less dangerous ones, too,” she reasons emphatically. And yeah, she knows it’s a bit like the pot calling the kettle black considering she’s thinking about riding around the country with a _gang_ , but at least they’re honest about what they are and don’t hide behind the idea that they’re fighting for ‘freedom’ or ‘justice’ and not just the interests of the wealthy and power hungry.

“Furiosa, are you worried about me?” He’s smirking at her in an aggravatingly smug way now, almost like he knows full well what she thinks of him.

Furiosa feels her face flush; whether in annoyance or embarrassment, she isn’t sure. “What the fuck do _you_ think?” He looks entirely too pleased at her answer, so she decides it’s probably best to just roll her eyes and abruptly change the subject. He’s only a junior, so she has plenty of time to talk him out of throwing his life away. “Anyway, were you in class or something when I called?”

He raises a shoulder and swipes another cinnamon twist. “S’just history. All stuff that already happened.”

“Well, you’re not _totally_ wrong,” she laughs. She tries to offer him one of the tacos she’d gotten for him since he seems hungry but he shakes his head and makes a grab for her drink instead. Her eyes unwittingly follow his oddly plump lips on her straw as he drains about a quarter of it, and it’s not until he looks back up at her that she can find the willpower glance away.

She reaches across the small table to try to take her Baja Blast back only to have it pulled just out of her reach. “So now that we’re friends you think you can just take my drink without asking?” she pouts.

Max shrugs again. “Friends share.”

“Friends _also_ ask first,” she returns.

“M’doing you a favor. This stuff is bad for you.” To punctuate his statement he takes another long sip, and she thinks that it’s completely unfair how unbothered he seems to be with sharing the same straw while it’s all she can focus on.

“I'm sorry, who was it that got wasted and ended up sleeping in my bed...twice?”

He feigns a look of ignorance, and she scoffs incredulously in response. It’s almost scary how easily he’s turned her mood around, how she can barely even remember what she’d been so upset about in the first place, but she refuses to let herself think too hard about that. With a quick jump forward she’s able to grab her slushie back, and then she polishes off the rest of her food in relatively short order after forcing him to eat at least one of the tacos she’d bought for him. Once they’ve thrown away their trash they head outside into the cool afternoon air.

“Where do you wanna go?” he asks, unlocking the doors to his car and hopping into the driver’s seat. He quickly shoves the junk sitting on his passenger seat onto the floor to make room for her and starts it up once she’s inside, the beast roaring to life beneath her feet.

Furiosa puts on her seatbelt and shrugs. “Don’t care. Away from here.”

He raises an eyebrow at her and then nods, zipping out of the parking lot at a speed that definitely isn’t safe and out onto the street.

They drive aimlessly around her part of town for awhile with the windows down and 80’s rock music playing quietly from his speakers. For the most part they don’t speak, and she weirdly finds that she’s more than okay with that. Maybe she’s projecting, but she truly enjoys the lack of expectation he seems to have for how she should behave, or dress, or speak. He isn’t looking up to her or afraid of her or expecting her to do something ‘great’ with her life.

She can just _be_ , and that’s more special than anything anyone else has given her in a long time. She wonders if maybe this is what it feels like to truly be at ease, and even though she should be alarmed that she’s letting her guard down so much around a person she’s known for all of a month, she just...isn’t.

It’s not until they get onto the highway that she begins to question where they’re going, and when they pull up to the telephone pole that houses his girlfriend’s shrine, she feels a sudden hollowness in her chest. If she had any doubt before of whether or not this was Max’s Jessie it’s all but obliterated now.

There are two new bouquets of sunflowers; both pretty fresh looking, and both probably from Max. He shuts the car off and stares silently at the photo, and though she isn’t great with delicacy, she somehow thinks he’ll appreciate her straightforwardness. “Can I ask how it happened?”

He doesn’t say anything for a long minute, the muscle jumping in his jaw as he struggles to calm down enough to form the correct words. His eyes continue to stare straight ahead as he begins to speak, voice low and dejected. “She was walking home from work and someone—some drunk asshole—they hit her. They hit her and didn’t stop even though she might’ve lived if they had.” His hands grip the steering wheel tighter, knuckles turning white with the effort. “She should’ve just called me. I told her never to walk along the highway at night but she never listens. _Listened_. Why did she have to be so—” He takes in a shuddering breath, and she notices the beginning of frustrated tears spring into her eyes.

To be honest, she'd sort of known how it had gone down. It'd only taken a quick Google search to find the article about the accident and the girl's obituary, but it's completely different to hear someone who was so close to the victim tell the story. It gives her an ache that she isn't quite prepared for and doesn’t know what to do with.

She isn’t sure how to comfort him—she's never had to do it for a guy before, let alone someone who's only recently become a friend—so she just does what the other girls do for her. She leans her head on his shoulder and loops her arm through his, hoping that he’s okay with the physical contact. To his credit he doesn't immediately pull away, instead just briefly tensing up. He wipes the unshed tears with the back of his hand and wills his muscles to relax until he's able to speak again.

“You’re a lot like her.”

If the mood weren’t so somber she might have actually laughed in his face. It's probably the last thing she'd expected to him to say, and she doesn’t have to look at the picture in the center of the shrine to know that he’s completely full of shit. “We look absolutely _nothing_ alike.”

He shakes his head, giving her an annoyed frown. “Not looks, I mean you’re both kind. And _stubborn_.”

“Seems like you have a type.” The words are out of her mouth before she truly considers their meaning, and when she realizes what she's said she nervously bites her lip. She hadn’t meant it as a come on and is worried that he’ll see it that way but is relieved when he just laughs a little and shakes his head.

“Guess so.” He lifts his gaze, blue eyes boring into hers, and it sends a funny feeling throughout her chest. There isn’t any particular expression on his face but she can’t look away and it’s terrifying and exciting and strange all at once.

“Thanks for bringing me here,” she says at a volume that’s somewhere between a whisper and her normal speaking voice.

His eyes widen by a minuscule amount, and she watches as he jerkily turns away and nods his head. “Wanted you to know. ‘Cause we’re friends.”

Furiosa swallows heavily. She’d been so pleased when he accepted her friendship only a week ago, but now...now being called his friend gives her a feeling that she can’t really explain and isn't altogether that pleasant. “Right. Yeah, of course.”

A bit of guilt gnaws at her heart as she thinks about all the things she hasn’t told him about herself and her own sordid history. He'd opened up to her as a friend, bared his soul and nearly shed tears in front of her, but she isn't willing to do the same. Not yet, and maybe not ever if she can help it. She doesn’t want him to look at her with pity; or worse, disgust.

The sound of a police siren chirping  behind them makes them both jump, and she glances in his side mirror to see red and blue flashing lights. “Shit,” she mumbles, releasing him to sit up straighter in her seat.

She groans when Fifi Macaffee, the town Sheriff himself, steps out of the vehicle to walk towards them. He’s a large, fair skinned man with a shaved head and thick blonde mustache, looking very much like the stereotypical cop. He’d run on the campaign of staying street level and connected with the community, and as a result he occasionally steps out from behind his desk and goes out on patrol. It’s just her luck that today is one of those days. “Let me handle this. I can get him off our backs fast.”

She’s gearing up for a fight but her words die in her throat when the man speaks. “Back here again, Max?”

Furiosa snaps her head to look at Max, shocked that they already know each other. How often does this happen for the _sheriff_ to know him by name?

“Sorry,” Max mumbles.

Like he hadn’t even heard the teen the man continues talking. “You can’t keep skipping school like this, Max. What happened to your girlfriend was tragic and we’re still investigating the details, but dwelling on it isn't doing you any good.” The man bends down to peer into the car, narrowing his eyes when they land on Furiosa. “Furiosa? Well, I’m certainly not surprised to see _you_ skipping school.”

“You know me, public enemy number one,” she drones back sarcastically. They’ve never gotten along, something she blames both on her upbringing and the fact that the guy is a self-important prick.

During her ‘fuck everyone and their mothers too’ phase she'd had quite a few run ins with local law enforcement. Mostly for truancy, but occasionally they'd pick her up for vandalism or assault if she was in an especially bad mood. Each time she’d had to endure one of Sheriff Macaffee’s lectures on ‘proper conduct for a young lady’, and each time she completely ignored every single word he said until he eventually realized that she was a lost cause.

The man scowls at her and then turns his attention back to Max. “You two a thing now? I know I said you should think about getting out there and dating again, but I'm not sure you should let this one get her claws into you.”

Furiosa feels her ears burn, and she has to wonder if it's possible to hate the man more than at that moment. If looks could kill he’d be little more than a black scorch mark on the asphalt right now. “Are we under arrest, _deputy Fife_?” She tries not to smirk as the man’s face turn a very delightful shade of pink. He doesn’t look at all like the bumbling cop from The Andy Griffith Show, but as long as it still pisses him off she doesn’t care.

“ _Sheriff Macaffee_. And I would if I could since apparently calling the school or your families doesn’t do anything. I’ll let you off this time, but I want you two to get back to school right now. Are we clear?”

Even though Max nods right away, she’s not so willing to give in without a final dig. “Yes, sir. We’ll get _right_ on that,” she drones with a sarcastic salute.

He eyes her for a long few seconds, looking _very_ much like he’d like to drag her kicking and screaming out of the car, but then he just grunts and walks back to his car, missing the stiff middle finger Furiosa sends at his back.

“I can't fucking stand him,” she grumbles as the cop pulls back onto the highway and continues on down the stretch of road.

Max shrugs. “He’s not so bad.”

She gapes at him for a few seconds with betrayal. Of _course_ Max actually likes him. “I changed my mind, I don't wanna be your friend anymore.”

“Too late, You're stuck with me,” Max says.

She huffs playfully, completely failing to keep the smile off of her face. “Fine. But we’re not going back.”

He nods firmly, smirking right back at her. “We’re not going back.” He turns the car on and illegally cuts across the median to gun it full speed in the opposite direction, Furiosa whooping loudly in the seat next to him.

**Author's Note:**

> i've had this story in my docs for over a year now, hoping posting it will make me actually finish it.


End file.
